Using Mac OS X Server as daily OS?

placebo

I'm a bit of a poweruser, and I recently had the opportunity to obtain it inexpensively from a friend. My questions:



Can I use Server as a day-to-day operating system? Also, I'm really into web development and I sometimes use my computer as a server, just in the default Tiger install. Will Server improve things and add utilities to make serving off of a Mac even easier?



Does Server get 10.4.x patches simultaneously with the regular Tiger? And what's the best way to move from the regular Tiger to Server? Archive and Install or default? (I'm not formatting again)

a_greer

AFAIK server adds tons of frontends for the unix server apps one would use from the command line like Apache I don't see why it wouldn't work as a day-to-day OS, but I also don't know of anything server can do that the desktop OS can't with some F/OSS unix tools.

EDIT: Apple remote desktiop manager is OSX server only



The reason that it is so much more expencive is that it is designed and officialy supported for mac servers. and a commercial server app that is oft' used in mission critical systems has to have rock solid reliability, that is what the server license gets you. (besides, for a unix server as full fledged and robust as OSX server tiger is, you'r getting a good deal. One would be hard pressed to get a redhat or windows server with unlimited CALs for $999)

o4blackwrx

There is absolutely no problem with running Server as your primary OS. I did it for over 6 months, when I had to host 16 students website's for a java class, and the only computer I could use was the server. So I ran all my applications, Adobe, Macromedia, etc. for over 6 months on Mac OS X Server. So if you want to and need a server you can do it just fine. I found a Mac mini running Server was the best solution for me. Also as a_greer pointed out, it includes a ton more plug-ins that might be required for you depending on your needs. I know personally I had to have SSL running, and as far as I know Mac OS X doesn't come with that capability. So depending on your needs and all yes it will be perfectly fine to run Mac OS X Server as your daily computer.



Patches for Server come at the same time as the regular OS does. That has been my experience for a couple years now at least.

dobby

I've got a B&W G3 I use as a daily machine that is running Panther Server. Works fine.



Dobby.

placebo

Sounds great! I think I'll install. Native PHP+MySQL support sounds nice, although it's nothing that can't be done without Entropy.ch stuff.

piwozniak

especially that you'll have to upgrade that MySQL i PHP

placebo

Crap, it turns out I wasn't given the CD key. Why the heck does Apple allow me to install an OS, and then lock me out at boot? I'm using Safari because I right-clicked one of the serial code boxes, and chose Search On Google.



I'll probably be able to get the key tomorrow, but this is a bummer for now.

Quote:

Originally posted by piwozniak

especially that you'll have to upgrade that MySQL i PHP

What do you mean?

piwozniak

OS X Server ships with older version of MySQL and older PHP build.



I had to upgrade MySQL to be able to use different character sets with different tables.





i don't remember why i had to upgrade php, something about additional components which are distributed with new builds i believe ...

something to do with graphics, gd perhaps ???



---------------------------



And i just realized something.... are we talking 10.3 or 10.4 here ?

I'm running 2 servers on 10.3 (10.3.8 - no problems and 10.3.9 - minor problems) and have 2 more XServes waiting for stable 10.4.x ...

placebo

Okay, PHP is borked. Instead of parsing my pages, it auto-downloads a generic document which, when I open it in textedit, is my PHP source, unparsed.



Installing Entropy...





Using 10.4.

piwozniak

brave soul you are ....

placebo

Quote:

Originally posted by piwozniak

brave soul you are ....

Not really. At all.



The problem may be that my PHP files are set to open with Safari as their opener instead of textedit or Dreamweaver. Perhaps this is part of the problem.

o4blackwrx

Quote:

Originally posted by Placebo

Not really. At all.



The problem may be that my PHP files are set to open with Safari as their opener instead of textedit or Dreamweaver. Perhaps this is part of the problem.

The problem you are having is that PHP is not correctly installed. When this happens any browser will automatically download the file for you. I had this happen when I first setup a server. I always use Entropy.ch packages and have yet to ever have a problem with them. They are the fastest and most affective way of installing PHP on the server. It could just be me though....

piwozniak

moreover, you can reconfigure modules part of apache GUI to point to that newly installed PHP and control it from there (whether it's loaded when apache start or not)

dave marsh

I run Apple's Remote Desktop administrator 2.2 on the MacOS X 10.4 Tiger client just fine. I've updated application files over the network from this administrator tool as well. Is there a more robust Remote Desktop tool for MacOS X 10.4 server than the currently selling 2.2 10-user and unlimited-user administrator versions?

placebo

The Server Admin utility was worth the upgrade. Having that kind of control over Apache without fiddling with the config files in a text editor is great.



Yeah, yeah, there's probably a 3rd party way of doing this, but don't ruin my fun. Everything I want under one GUI.

jellytussle

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave Marsh

I run Apple's Remote Desktop administrator 2.2 on the MacOS X 10.4 Tiger client just fine. I've updated application files over the network from this administrator tool as well. Is there a more robust Remote Desktop tool for MacOS X 10.4 server than the currently selling 2.2 10-user and unlimited-user administrator versions?

nope.

placebo

Does it install regular patches or what? I'm seeing 10.4.2 as latest here, but just wondering whether it's typical for them to be synced.