Questions that have to be asked.

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Chrysalis

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Aug 25, 2004
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Well over a week ago I emailed John at directadmin about changes that should be made to fix many issues with FreeBSD integration and php switches in configure.php, I have had no reply I have somewhat got annoyed recently with the following.

1 - PHP switches been wrong in configure.php, and not reacting on feedback.

2 - Out of date packages, a few packages are well over 6 months old installed by DA and one is over a year old.

3 - Poor FreeBSD integration, the mysql integration is abysmal and I suggested a much better way of doing it so 4.0.24 instead of 4.0.17 is on new installs and is much easier to maintain/upgrade. There are also a few other minor issues that should take very little time to fix.

4 - The constant adding of new features whilst not doing anything about incomplete/buggy features such as the ssh jail and missing restore feature.

5 - Any packages where DA make their own packages such as exim they should be subscribed to mailing lists so customers dont have to email telling them there is updates.

I think the obvious cause of these problems is overwork, it looks like there is 1 sales and 1 support, ideally they could do someone dedicated to shell scripts and os integration and another guy doing support so more work can go into development. I hope my feedback is taken well and not frowned upon.

On beta testing if there is a struggle to get beta testers for incomplete features then perhaps a free restricted version (max 20 clients or something) to encourage testing.
 
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I don't think anyone should frown upon your comments. These are legitimate concerns for people running hosting companies. I would have to think DA should have the finances to at least hire another fulltime person to handle support so that development can be worked on.
I mean there are plenty of people who purchased DA.

While DA is always adding features, they are not large features(which I would like to see). DA does have competition, so they do need to continually add features while keeping the software respectably stable. They are way behind the feature curve of cpanel, plesk and ensim. I a not talking about frivilous features. I'm talking about important features like Jail/shell, chrooted environment(could be nice), external dns sync(cluster) and an email user panel(really necessary in today's hosting world). If Plesk wasn't so buggy with updates, I would have switched a while ago. But I just really like DA, there is just something about it that sits right with me. I hope JBMC delivers and enjoys a fruitful business. DA is young software and off to a great start, but there are more and more control panels coming out these days.
 
Yeah I agree it is software in its youth, and the same for me how I just like how it operates more so then plesk and cpanel which is why I use it. But I just start to see things like lagged responses to emails and they in danger of having tons of unfinished features.
 
Yes. I thought the last update addressed some importantant things, so on certain fronts things seem to be picking up again.
But yes unfinished features are not good. This is why cpanel can be so patchwork. We don't want DA to turn into Cpanel. Don't het me wrong, I like most of the features of Cpanel, but I like the way DA is written better. It makes me feel safer.

As for support, I can honestly say I have never had a problem with them responding to me. I have never waited more then 12 hours for a reply. Then again I never really ask them anything too difficult:) But John always answers me the same day with a good answer.

Obviously they could use some help. Site-Helper is going to be rendered useless unless some addresses it soon:)
 
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BTW,
You are definitely right on the Restore feature. Really this should take precedence over many things. It really needs to be done soon. It would make me feel a lot better about DA.

As fo OSs, this is why I stick with RH. Like it or not, it is the defacto OS for all Linux control panels. When I look at the other CPs, FreeBSD always seems to have issues in terms of vendor support.
 
FreeBSD usually have issues is because I think the developer's are probably used to linux which has a different structure to it, and then run into problems when they try to get it to work the same way. However saying that DA does actually run pretty well on FreeBSD. I think it has better integration then cpanel, most of the the issues I posted apply for all os'es and I didnt post any linux specfic issues since I dont run linux. The ones I am annoyed with are either trivial issues which I will be honest is a 5min job to fix or its an issue that has been around forever and really should have been done by now.
 
I agree

These issues and others are holding me back from considering a switch from Plesk.

DA is lacking some basic functionality and features that all other CPs have.

It has some benefits which is that it seems more simple and stable than the others but is this perhaps because it lacks core features?

I'm waiting to see what they do because there have been many promises of restore , transfer and many other functions but no updates on them.

I'm sure they're just busy so hopefully in this stage of growth they'll rise to the occasion and keep delivering :)
 
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