BTW-If you run into any problems with the image, let us know in our bug tracker ( http://www.virtualmin.com/bug-tracker/ ). It's not heavily used yet, but seems to be pretty solid.

I am rolling an AMI with: ligHTTPD, pylons/web.py, fcgi etc. Would anyone here be interested in using that (GPL) or am I just wasting my time?

The RoR image is pretty popular, so a Python focused image might also. We don't have any hard numbers about the usage of our Virtualmin image (yet, though we're working on it), but I've definitely talked to a dozen or so users that are toying with it and even a couple who are deploying on EC2. I'd still be a wee bit leery of production use, as EC2 has had some reliability problems which I'm not sure have all been worked out. A couple of YC companies are hosting entirely with EC2/S3, and they've figured out ways to work around the reliability issues to their satisfaction, so far.

From the link above:

5. Start an new instance with the AMI for Virtualmin Pro with the command..

...Surely, you meant that to be " Start a new instance etc"

Fixed. Thank you, Grammar Master. ;-)

Any time... The correct title is Grammar Police :)

now if this was done with plesk..

You leave me guessing..

..it would have a quarter the features?

..it would cost $500, or more?

..it would make it impossible to safely edit configuration files from the command line?

..it would use an insecure execution model for PHP scripts?

..it wouldn't offer a friendly UI for installing Ruby Gems, PHP Pear modules, and Perl CPAN modules?

..it wouldn't be Open Source?

..it wouldn't have comprehensive monitoring with email and mobile alerts?

..it wouldn't allow you the flexibility to choose an MTA other than the default?

What did you have in mind?

Sorry for leaving my comment without any justification. I am a longtime plesk user and the interface is home for me. I had a textdrive account for a month and I did _not_ like the webmin UI. I know that sounds very cheesy and I'm sorry for that, but that's me.

Nothing wrong with having a preference and expressing it. I just have a vested interest in figuring out what you prefer about Plesk. If it's just appearances, then we'll have that resolved this week with the new theme I'm working on. If it's functionality, then we've long ago surpassed Plesk on features and capabilities. If it's just what you're used to, then there's not much we can do about it...if we were going to model our product after an existing one, we'd have to choose cPanel, since it has about 70% market share. But we're not going that route...we'll just have to accept that some folks don't want to learn a new UI and let our competitors have those users. Luckily, the vast majority of people on the planet have never seen any control panel product. ;-)

Also worth noting, TextDrive only recently began using the latest version of Virtualmin...until a week or two ago, they were on a heavily customized ancient--like 1.mumble--version, which worked for what they needed, but we've done a lot over the past two years between that version and the current version. Don't judge us based on a two or three year old version--Virtualmin was just a fun side project for me and Jamie back then.