Ebox Unpacking
Recently I discovered a novelty (for me) on the hunt for groupware solutions, called ebox or ebox-platform for full (http://www.ebox-platform.com).
This solution does not focus strictly on groupware or e-mail but provides a fully costomizable office package with DNS,DHCP,LDAP,MAIL,PROXY and a lot more solutions, based on the LTS release of Ubuntu (8.04 LTS that is).
The first installation of ebox 1.2 was a breeze, and in general performance and configuration is very easy. Setting up as a groupware server they decided to include egroupware, not really my choice. Fortunately in the 1.3 beta they now included a solution based on roundcube, which works a lot faster and looks a lot better.
EBox Monitoring Example
Next step was the installation of ebox as a LDC (Local Domain Controller) with some Windows XP/Vista/W7/Ubuntu clients, with different types of users, a brother laserprinter and shared folders. The setup was very easy, and after creating the users everything was a walk in the park. Performance is definately at a level that it can compete with Windows Server 2003/2008 based AD solutions, and the additional web-management makes remote management a delight.
Ebox Dashboard
For the true demanding users, it might be a good idea to wait for the Ebox 1.4 release, which will (hopefully) have Ubuntu 10.4 LTS as a base. You can get your own copy at http://www.ebox-platform.com at no cost.
Groupware roundup #1
As e-mail, communication and exchange seems to be growing rapidly it is interesting to spot some of the novelty's on the market.
One of these novelties in my opinion is the recent rise (or expansion) of linux based groupware solutions. For an impressions here's an -incomplete- list with the most popular groupware solutions, and their (dis) advantages:
- eGroupware - flexible, opensource and a complete solution but a pain to install and maintain due to absence of installer packages that actualy work correctly with mailsupport
- Kolab - versatile, fully expandable, fully opensource but the lack of good documentation make it a pain in the ass to even try to install
- Open-Xchange - supported, nicely documented but partly closed source and a pricey solution even compared to exchange!
- Zimbra - very good support, active community and a free personal version available but pricey solution when implementing and the current development seems to be slacking in supporting new linux distributions
- Scalix - currently the most promising solutions, very good documentation and active community, free personal version available including outlook connector, but missing debian/ubuntu packages as well as a resource hogger due to the java architecture
- Group-Office - very nice interface, good standard documentation, cheap license model but administration is quite limited in options, meaning you will have to edit a lot of files manualy (for instance when setting up a smarthost)
- Citadel - easy to use and install groupware, fully opensource, fast usuage and lightweight but interface will not appeal to everyone and administration seems to be cluttered
THis is by no means a complete list, but gives you an impression of whats available, possible and impossible 
.
For all solutions, howver, it seems to be a real problem to get a good and fast working outlook connection supporting addressbook, calendar, notes and e-mail like exchange provides. The one supporting this as one of the best compared to its cost will be Scalix, as their "Premium Users" include the outlook connector acting as exchange component working really well and fast.
However as I said before, sclaix does not seems to have any debian or ubuntu based packages (debs) and instead o this they release a manual solution. As always with popular packages someone tries to find a better solution for this and so did Rene Hadler. He created a python based solution for installing scalix on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, Ubuntu 8.10 and Debian 4 (etch). This solutions works brilliantly, but for most of the users the german language makes it hard to understand the installer, and that's where I came in. Now there is a fully translated version of this scalix installer available, and because Rene Hadler's website seems to be on and off I will provide a mirror here including instructions on the installation. So click on the link below for complete instructions and a mirror to the installer.