TurnKey Linux vs. Bitnami | TurnKey GNU/Linux

I have been waiting for the new 10.4 versions to come out and I just couldn't wait anymore, so I decided to try out a Bitnami virtual appliance. Let me tell you it was not worth it and it made me appreciate what TKL does even more! I posted about my Bitnami experience here: http://www.danielrobertson.info/2010/05/bitnami-redmine-appliance/

Any news when we can expect the new betas to be out? Can we get a copy of the core sooner, or are you working on them all at once? I don't intend to be pushy, just eager. 🙂

Thanks,

Dan R.

Replies (2)

I would think soon.

Reply 1 2010-05-21

They are close to releasing the TKL Hub (just doing final touch ups) and I suspect (although pure speculation) once that beta is released then the 10.04 based appliance betas shouldn't be too far behind.

Again I'm only speculating but as the guys have mentioned that they generally use automated scripts to produce appliances they will probably all be released together.

Don't worry I'm keen too! :)

BTW interesting reflections on Bitnami, I've only had a glance over it but intend to read through when I get a chance

BitNami cheat

Reply 2 2010-05-21

Dan's review was a good read. I think the reason you had a bad user experience with BitNami is that they sort of cheat when they're assembling a virtual appliance. They don't install the components through the package management system, but rather roll everything together using their own proprietary installer. I don't really like that approach because it gives you a bloated appliance that has its own weird way of doing things. As Dan testifies that doesn't result in a good user experience.

OTOH, with TurnKey you know it's just a customized Ubuntu under the hood. We try not to break the rules. So not only do things work much better out of the box, you are also much more likely to be able to Google the information you want because the Ubuntu community is larger.

Regarding 10.04, sorry for the delay. JedMeister guessed right, there is only so much we can work on at the same time and launching the Hub in good form has been taking a lot of our attention. It's true that much of the build process is automated, but many things have changed since 8.04 and we don't just want to throw something out there without having a reasonable expectation that it will work. With 40 appliances + a batch of new community appliances, that takes time.

Oh, and we did plan on pushing out all the betas at the same time to sourceforge, but Dan makes a good point. We'll push out Core 10.04 as soon as it's ready for community testing. That shouldn't take much longer.