If you're like me, you love Linux but the learning curve is a real killer. I remember it seemed to take forever to setup Apache the way I wanted, and I don't even want to mention how long it took me to figure out MySQL and Samba. To make a long story short, if you want to use all the features you can but don't have time or don't like the command line method (you still should learn it though!), Webmin is the way to go.
Webmin is like the Windows Control Panel for Linux. It gives you one convenient spot to control almost everything about your system and to top that, you access it via the web! Webmin is a modular program that makes it easy to add functions, just like you'd add a plug-in to Photoshop; and if you're good at Perl, there are some good tutorials and templates on creating your own modules. Below I've listed some of the more commonly used modules in Webmin.
Apache
DNS (BIND 4 and 8)
DHCP
FTP server
Majordomo
MySQL
Samba
SendMail
Squid
It can also help you out with these hardware and system options:
LILO
RAID
Network Configuration (can also do virtual IP's)
Manage Partitions
Printer Admin
System and Hardware time
Bootup / Shutdown
Cron Jobs
RPM Packages (It can install and remove software)
System Logs
Users and Groups
Best of all, there's even a File System browser that works like Windows Explorer- you can Edit, Copy, Delete, and even Upload files all from the web.
By now you're probably wondering, "Where do I get it?" You can grab a copy by going to the site: http://www.webmin.com or one of their mirrors. At the time this article was written 0.79 was the current version.
In this article we'll talk about installing, setting up basic security, and adding a Virtual IP address and Domain. So hang on tight, Linux is about to get a whole lot easier.