Posted by aharown07 on January 29, 2011 at 1:59pm
Background in Linux: not much... used Ubuntu & Mint as desktop for a year or so
Drupal dev: couple years now, part time
Currently have my sites (just 2) on a shared hosting situation and want to move to where I'll have more control over performance. Since I love piling on modules in my Drupal installs, query load (I don't know all the proper terms for these things) is heavy.
Research led me to Linode and then to Mercury... and Pantheon. So there wd be easier ways to get my sites up at Linode, but promise of much better performance = irresistible. (Want to pile on more Drupal modules!)
- The Linode stack script for Pantheon/Mercury here would be my starting point after getting my linode up and the pre-stack stuff done.
So I'm trying to slowly learn all this. And hope it's not going to be too hard to maintain. Misc. questions...
- What is the difference/relationship between Mercury and Pantheon?
- What is Pressflow and do I really need it for a couple of sites on a Linode if all I want to do is get Mercury-level performance?
- Is there a control panel/web-based-file manager (with Linode, I'm guessing I probably mostly just need the file manager to save me some time) that is known to work well with Mercury/Pantheon?
- Many other acroymns/names flying around these threads.... a couple random ones: What's Hudson and what's varnish?
Comments
What I am finding out is that
What I am finding out is that on linode its really fast, but at the same time It is a compromise. There is very little support around here. Everyone works very hard... but little feedback.
Facebook status has a problem with the use of ajax AHAH I have found so far. Also I have found that caching affects the ability to fill in forms. On various forms the values are not refreshed and you cant see the value in the form you entered unless you clear caches or reload the page.
It is als giving errors on new registrations. Form data is not being displayed and or submitted twice because you cant see the info and then hit submit twice.
I am trying to fins ways around these problems, and have bsically installed pantheon on one slice, and omega.cc Aegir on another, and i have a default wamp setup on a third without any caching.
www.thecenterofthenet.com
http://cn.linkedin.com/in/roberpteatonjr
http://www.facebook.com/robertp.eaton
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The Linode stack script for
The Linode stack script for Pantheon/Mercury here would be my starting point after getting my linode up and the pre-stack stuff done.
So I'm trying to slowly learn all this. And hope it's not going to be too hard to maintain. Misc. questions...
What is the difference/relationship between Mercury and Pantheon?
They are synonymous. I call it pantheon now.
What is Pressflow and do I really need it for a couple of sites on a Linode if all I want to do is get Mercury-level performance?
Pressflow is part of the pantheon structure. Also is varnish, apc, memcache, Solr, etc. Its all based on apache.
Is there a control panel/web-based-file manager (with Linode, I'm guessing I probably mostly just need the file manager to save me some time) that is known to work well with Mercury/Pantheon?
Pretty much not. only hudson.
Many other acroymns/names flying around these threads.... a couple random ones: What's Hudson and what's varnish?
Hudson is a chron management front end, filled with certain scripts . I dont use it only for install. Varnish is a caching system for apache.
www.thecenterofthenet.com
http://cn.linkedin.com/in/roberpteatonjr
http://www.facebook.com/robertp.eaton
http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/6A42F1A1-E40A-48FD-8C7F-FF258A401...
Thanks for the info
That helps alot, thanks.
Pantheon is not quite ready for prime time maybe?
I saw a short video here on setting up a Drupal site in Pantheon. But I don't get the bigger picture of what's happening there. My impression was that Pantheon/Merc. has to do with how your server is set up. So why wouldn't you just plunk your site in your document root as usual?
But I take it what's happening in the vid is something else. Is it optional?
Not clear on the concept.
There is a thread a coupl
There is a thread a coupl down about how to install 1.2 on linode 64bit ubuntu 10.04 Id reccomend that. But this is all cutting edge and I think the people in the know are all a lot of fat cats with big companies and smart scientists on a team were they get the funds to do whatever they want before driving their nice car home.
Im just a nobody teacher in China for 10 years, eastern gerany for like 4 or 5 and using drupal to try to catch that dream of a successfull open learning initiative.
Understaffed, under employed, its super at making everything fast. Id recommen omegga two. IMHO omegga and pantheon are the best in thier distinctive apache vs. Nginx areas. And for someone wiht little resources when you use their scripts you are riding on the back of giants. But if you have any questions, because they are giants thehy have little time for us little people.
Actually you sill see all the discussion about these projects seem to be dying down sice last october. Maybe everyonbe is unemployed and homelss too now I dont know.
www.thecenterofthenet.com
http://cn.linkedin.com/in/roberpteatonjr
http://www.facebook.com/robertp.eaton
http://www.alamy.com/stock-photography/6A42F1A1-E40A-48FD-8C7F-FF258A401...
vpsBible
I've done some more reading and come to the conclusion that Pantheon is not the right place for me to jump into the whole business of server admin. I remain very interested for down the road, though. Hope the project gains steam.
Meanwhile, what's proving to be far more on my level is the stuff at vpsBible... so going w/that and nginx for now.
I think I got the vpsBible tip from one of your posts, AntiNSA. If not, whoever it was, thanks for the tip.
learning server admin
For learning server admin, ServInt is a fully managed VPS, with 3 months at 50% off (with a widely available coupon) that brings it similar in cost to Linode, I think. Once WHM and cPanel are installed it works a lot like a shared account.
VPS.net also has great support, with a "per incident" $10 coupon which is a good option in a difficult situation, and lots of free support in any case, more than most unmanaged VPS that I have tried.
Managed
Yeah, I've seen some of those and very similar options. Wanted to get away from "managed." The goal is to be able to fine tune the server to only do what we need it to do... so no mail server, no cPanel or other panels, a theoretically quicker webserver (instead of Apache)--and direct access to lots of data about what's happening hour by hour so we can identify bottlenecks etc.
Since I love to pile modules on so much, we have to have the horsepower to crunch through all the queries they generate.
So by "learning server admin" I mean really learning it. The managed environment really limits how much admin there is to do as well as ability to do it.