I wasted some valuable time installing webmin, and usermin when what I really needed was virtualmin. I didn’t see virtualmin mentioned on the webmin and usermin page.
I might remember next time, but for us newbies just mention virtualmin on those other product pages. It might save some time for the next dummy ( or me if I forget again )
Sure.
What way did you come in?
Sorry, really old joke, but not totally off point.
How are the developers supposed to know what your needs are. These are too different products. You really got confused because Virtualmin uses a specially integrated version of Webmin?
I just went to Webmin.com and it is pretty clear. It mentions Virtualmin.
But, seriously, what way did you come in? Have you used Virtualmin and gotten confused by the included Webmin? Without knowing the source of your confusion it is hard to correct for it. I know this may sound flip but the forum is pretty Virtualmin centric so it is harder for us to understand how you got confused.
You’re right, we should mention Virtualmin for folks who’ve been led to Webmin (you’re not alone in being confused…I don’t know how to solve it, Virtualmin has been around for 20 years, but many people in the world at large still talk about Webmin as if it is a web hosting control panel).
I’ve even seen several “comparisons” of web hosting control panels that mention both Virtualmin and Webmin, which is just a level of disregard for their readers I can’t even understand. That tells me they didn’t look at anything they’re talking about, and their suggestions are worse than useless. So, yes, people still say Webmin when what they mean is Virtualmin.
And, a lot of hosting providers offer an image with Webmin, which isn’t all that great for users or all that great for us (because it makes people think we don’t make something competitive with e.g. cPanel or whatever…but Webmin just isn’t in the category, it’s not trying to make web hosting easy).
So, yeah, you’re right. Virtualmin used to have a tab in the menu on the Webmin site, but somehow that kind of disappeared in the rebuild. And, we used to have a section of the first page of Virtualmin.com that explained what all the projects (Webmin, Usermin, Cloudmin, and Virtualmin do and are for). That also disappeared, and I think I wasn’t done ranting about it when I got distracted and it never got sorted out. So, I guess I need to chat with @Ilia about how we can bring that back, maybe a section on both Webmin.com and Virtualmin.com that explains what all four things are in clear language. It’s a source of confusion, and we know it is a source of confusion, so we should do something about it.
I don’t think it is all that clear. It talks about managing stuff like Apache, BIND, etc. which is true, and it is a thing Webmin does, but it doesn’t do it in the way that people think of when they think “Web hosting control panel”, and a lot of people still think Webmin is a web hosting control panel (even though it isn’t and never has been…it’s a web-based general purpose systems management GUI for Linux and UNIX systems).
Thanks for the reply, but for context, you gotta turn off your brain, and go down to the level of the OP (that would be me)
Earlier I leaned that installing webmin does not install usermin (or is it vice-versa)
So I went with installing webmin. Well to my surprise (or just another realization that I might not be as smart as I thought) - usermin did not get installed.
My request is - please be considerate of us knuckle dragging newbies that don’t know their way around a beach shell and a bash shell. I now manage a website with over 10k users a day, but I wasn’t born with knowing everything. I’m still learning, and happy to assist those following me, knowing where I started out.
My struggle with virtial* is I didn’t have enough prior failures to know where to go.
I’m just a dummy, trying to learn.
If I saw something in the header of the webmin page “Hey, Are you looking for Virtualmin?”, then I would have saved hours, beers and tears.
Anyways, thanks for the replies and consideration of my delima.
I’m not confident you’re on the right page, even now.
What do you think Usermin does and is for? (I’m asking so we can try to improve things. I’m really surprised you were looking for Usermin without knowing about Virtualmin, so I can’t guess how you found out about Usermin.)
perhaps the clue is in the name? “Webmin” has a ring about it being something to do with the web. - and someone “new” can be forgiven for not being with it on 20 years of knowledge.
This could be a great and valuable improvement! @Jamie, what are your thoughts on creating a one-time notification alert on the dashboard for every Webmin admin user to briefly explain Virtualmin and its functions, and provide a link to the Virtualmin website?
During the webmin installation script, add a question checking with the user are they wanting a full webhosting solution or just server management. and if they want webhosting then the script will download the virtualmin script and run that instead.
Make the webmin and virtualmin script one script. So all users will use the one script and get prompted with the question above.
i definitely think a unified installer is the way to go.
You need to clear the confusion of your 3 different products webmin, virtualmin and usermin. Cloudmin, is this a plugin also? This is why a lot of people struggle to get into your ecosystem.
Consider wordpress, you install the CMS and then the plugins you want and you should perhaps look at doing the same with Webmin.
Another big thing is a plugin directory, and a theme directory when and if the code is altered to allow this (p.s. mention on another thread). this would also help 3rd party plugin development and utilisation of a growing API.
In reguards to install Webmin via a Deb/RPM on the initial run you can have webmin run a wizard and one of the questions could be, is this a fresh installation and do you want to install Webmin + Virtualmin. You can do various tests before continuing with the installation of virtualmin but the admin has to take some responsibility when he answers the questions.
I won’t argue with that! I’d be excited to create a unified installer, but the bigger priority for making all our projects more popular is properly organizing them on GitHub. I’ve discussed this with @Jamie and @Joe a few times—webmin should be an organization that hosts all the code and repositories instead of splitting things under the separate virtualmin organization.
It just makes more sense for users to have webmin/virtualmin-gpl or webmin/virtualmin-nginx rather than virtualmin/virtualmin-gpl or virtualmin/virtualmin-nginx. The current setup is a mess—especially with virtualmin/cloudmin-installer. Total chaos. Yiakes!
The good news is that moving a repo from virtualmin to webmin is super smooth on GitHub. Old links will work forever, and as long as Joe owns the virtualmin organization. Even better—API calls and scripts using old paths will continue to function without breaking anything!
Yes, I’d be glad to do it, but as long as it’s disorganized across different organizations, it won’t work. I realized this a long time ago and transferred all control of authentic-theme/authentic-theme to webmin/authentic-theme. This is the only right thing to do for the project.
Yeah, but these are just details on how a consolidated script should work.
I think you are right that consolidating all of the assets in the webmin repo is a good place to start. I feel an internal staff meeting and roadmap coming on.
No! I didn’t mean find new ways to annoy users! I just meant put information about what all the projects do on the Webmin and Virtualmin home pages in a visible location, so it is very easy to know which one(s) someone needs.
Good lord, I’m talking about the websites, not developer stuff. Users see the websites first. That’s where they need an explanation of what the projects do, and it needs to be clear and on the front page.
We could do it, I guess. However, as I mentioned earlier, it didn’t go anyway, and it’s clearly available under the hamburger menu—the most recognizable menu item in the world, consistent across all platforms. I highly doubt it will be generally helpful.
You’re absolutely right; I will create a new separate thread for this!
Why not ONE landing page for both Webmin.com and Virtualmin.com and then let the user choose from there? Or the same info with links at the top of each in case the user decides they are on the wrong page?
