Help going from single site to BOA.

I am making the move you are entertaining. I have had help from a wonderful Drupaler from Australia. I can tell you that at this very early stage -- just got BOA installed on a Linode -- I am impressed. Much of the work that I struggled with before BOA is now automated. It was a challenge to switch my non-developer brain from the tedious steps associated with a Drupal multi-site install on shared hosting or on a Windows server box. Now I don't understand why I was so challenged. You really need to stick with viewing of youtube videos or other webcasts, reading of the documentation and then just go do it. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. There is still a need for better skills in articulating technical how-to's to us non-programmer types but Grace's work is far better than I have encountered elsewhere. I still need to learn so much more and will be guilty of the stupid question for some time to come but all in all, I encourage you to try BOA. It helped me stay with Drupal!

I was rereading the original OP and replies (you are very welcome, Grace/Omega8cc) and I realized I did not react to the OPs statement about the file structure in the Unix box. I also recalled others (developers) commenting on an ebook on Drupal that they suggested wasted reading space by including pages on the debian file structure. This interests me because as I look back on my notes, the very first thing I did was google for debian/ubuntu file structure as I truly had no idea how to understand that structure. Good grief...it starts without a C:/ and where are other drives? What in the world is "var" and what do you put, if anything, in an "etc" dir. or is it folder? Why are there sites enabled versus sites available and, do tell, they need to be sym linked (sym linked?). Huh? Yes, Elm, you are normal. You are like us -- the noobs. Again, I encourage you to not back away from the unfamiliar file system structure. It can be easily understood but you'll need to edu yourself. Google is your friend. I bet Google is going to be more of your friend than your superiors, who might not get the learning curve you are going to have to be upon for awhile. It's worth it, though, I assure you.

As I write this, I recall days from my young years -- those years when I knew everything, lol. At that time, I had the good fortune of have a writing position that involved popularizing basic and applied veterinary science research. I had to write in a manner that lay people understood the science, which means that one first assumes zero knowledge of any of the individual fields of study. Secondly, one assumes that the readers are intelligent. That, combined with use of Fog Indices, created a structure for writing of feature stories that introduced readers to difficult concepts that they grasped by the end of the article. I oftentimes think that Drupal needs that type of science writing approach applied to its own documentation. It would certainly make for an interesting discussion at some point, particularly if there continues to be interest in assuring the Drupal, Aegir, B/O are reachable by those of us who are not programmers or server admins. There is always going to be demand for the skills of the latter. But I certainly work more happily with both of these groups when I am knowledgeable.