The Apache module mod_vhost_alias and its VirtualDocumentRoot directive can really be a great time saver for local development (some googling will explain why in more deapth). Basically, my local dev is set up so that I just have to create a directory in my aliases directory, and I just then navigate my browser to a URL matching the name of that new directory, and apache knows exactly what to serve automagically.

At least twice, now, I've encountered problems (read: apache segfaults, oh noes!) with mod_auth_mysql on Ubuntu 64-bit installs, most recently using Jaunty Jackalope (9.04) -- the most recent release (at least until 9.10 comes out soon).

I tend to consider myself a technical user, and for years, I operated various Linux distributions and setups to facilitate our home network. Mostly this meant a place to dump our backups in an intelligent manner, but I would also setup things like easy file sharing between our computers and even get fancy sometimes and so music servers or video streaming (though we never actually used any of that). However, after years of putting a lot of effort into maintaining that type of setup (keeping things organized, re-configuring everything after a workstation re-install, reconfiguring the server after a Linux re-install, etc), I decided I wanted something simple, that "just works." To be fair, part of my problem with using Linux was that the Linux box doubled as my development and testbed server, so I was always tinkering with it. Instead, I needed a box that would serve our family home network and not be my tinker box.

Enter Windows Home Server.