This should be obvious, but..

If it’s not notifications / oddly explained failures to build from gcc itself (hello davfs2 on CentOS/RHEL5, where did that fail? Insights welcomed as the build.log is charmingly opaque. Cheers) or flex & bison (Hello vulcan on F10/x86_64, whaddaya mean you can’t parse and move the .yy files? Jebus on a razor scooter every other distro version and arch did it happily except the one I actually run!) it’s another thing.

Am I also the only person who sees “advice” like this “fix” for a library error and let out a Charlie Brown-esque “AUGH!” (Two good ways to fix this, microbrew to the commenter who posts the most elegant one first ;-))

I’ve had much success installing Fedora Directory Server and Cobbler over the last couple of days (home and the workplace respectively) but remind those attempting it that “with great power, comes a great responsibility to read the supplied documentation carefully before issuing a ‘service <foo> start'” .

These two are an example of packages that are insanely great, very powerful and can do everything but bring about world peace. Conversely the configuration items and possibilities are legion, ergo consider what you want to achieve and what you’re working with before you open your text editor.

Doing it the other way around is of course an excellent way of creating a timesink. ?

Sensible defaults are good and common, but not always ideal. Just because it starts doesn’t mean it will suit your needs. Approach with a plan and you’ll be much happier and more successful.

(The same reasoning applies to “live” server installs. “It boots” doesn’t mean “It works” or “It’s secure” – especially the latter, having seen a few folk learn the hard way ;-))