When testing out new software packages or development environments, part of the hassle tends to be downloading the package, finding a spare machine, installing it on that machine, and then getting it configured and ready to go. A great site called TurnKey Linux has come up with a solution that perfectly solves these problems.
They have appliances for many of the most popular open-source software packages including:
Google App Engine
Tomcat
phpBB
WordPress
LAMP
Ruby on Rails
MediaWiki
Django
and many more
At work we wanted to set up a Wiki to track our development documentation. Using the MediaWiki appliance we had a complete running VM of MediaWiki within 6 minutes of downloading it. If you are interested in experimenting with any of these software packages, you must check TurnKey Linux out.
Absolutely. In fact, we’ve got it down to a 2 minute install time, all using a web based interface. The concept really is designed for those that want this installed on a VPS setup with us (GigaTux). We’ve enabled the appliances to work with the DTC open source control panel, which means that literally within one click, the OS can be reinstalled to any of the appliances provided by the Turnkey Linux project.
It’s pretty neat and you can see more information at http://www.gigatux.com/tech/turnkeylinux.php