[plug] Web based administration tools

[Clinton Butler]

> I'm setting up a server for a friend of mine and since they aren't
> very linux literate ...

not a lot of people really are

> This will be a webserver predominantly running apache, can anyone 
> recommend some tools that may help? 

I have heard whispers of an application named Commanche, which is an 
GUI X interface for the administration of apache setups. I have not 
personally used it so I do not know how good/bad it is... just a 
suggestion for you to look into.

> I was thinking of perhaps running Debian on it but if I can't find 
> much in the way to make the day to day administration and monitoring 
> easier I'll have to consider alternatives.

Well... Debian is what I'd personally use for the stability and
reliability factor... but... if it's a new user... it may be painful for
them, I could suggest a debain-based distribution, but it may cause some
commotion... Corel is good for converting previous Winblows users to
Linux... it has a decent GUI setup and (unfortunately too much like
windows) it configures most of the server stuff by itself. But it does
lack in the amount of software it ships with (only 1 CD total for the
entire distro).