I think it may be time for me to abandon ClearOS. This product used to be called ClarkConnect, and I've happily used it since about v4. I have advised the purchase of a clearbox appliances when ClearOS was at v5. ClearFoundation (hear after simply 'clear' -- the organization that produces the 'clear' product family) did not provide an upgrade process from v5 to v6. As a result, the appliances I advised be purchased will become obsolete when Clear stops providing security updates. The only way to 'upgrade' ClearOSv5 to ClearOSv6 is to perform a fresh install and put a lot of time into manual migration. If you were running a domain controller, get ready to migrate the users on the workstations as well. So in short, ClearOSv6 is a trainwreck. I do like the modularity in the new UI, but there are also some disappointing changes in various applications. When Clear rewrote the free versions of some applications for v6, not all the features made it in. And now we have ClearCore again (ClarkConnect used to be based on it's own variant of RHEL). This is fine; CentOS was taking too long to deliver v6, and they had a bad attitude about the delay. But I would have rather seen Clear rebase ClearOS to a popular distribution (like ubuntu server) than roll their own. If I were coming to ClearOSv6 as a new user, I might like it more. But I'm a long-time paying user going back to the ClarkConnect days. I have been abandoned by Clear in the migration to v6. Looking back, I've had to deal with a lot of re-installs caused by a lack of an upgrade path. That's one thing when the firewall runs on a PC over a home network; I find the lack of consideration of existing users completely unacceptable when considering the appliances purchased through Clear. Is ClearOSv6 going to be a stable product line that won't require re-installs with massive migrations anymore? I thought ClearOSv5 was supposed to be my final re-install. Given the history of the project, I don't trust the future of ClearOSv6, and I'm ready for an alternative. That's where zentyal comes in. Formerly eBox, this looks like an exceptional starting point for a replacement to my ClearOS gateways. Zentyal is based on ubuntu, and packs a lot of great features into the community version. I breezed through the install this weekend, and I'm happy that the firewall feels peppier and more stable. (The firewall service in ClearOSv6 had a tendency to crash for me; I periodically had to SSH into the gateway to kick it, which I found exceptionally frustrating.) I look forward to writing subpages as I discover Zentyal. |
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