I know this is an older topic, however I thought I'd chime in anyway.
I found Abyss in a google search for a personal web server that I could run from home. I'm a musician/entertainer by trade and have audience members coming up all the time asking if I know this song or that one. Well since I've played professionally for over thirty years, my most common answer had been, "Well I've played it but never sang it. I could probably do it if I had the lyrics." So started the search for a great lyric database. In short order I had collected the lyrics to over sixteen thousand songs. Well word got out around my musician buddy's, and the next thing I know their all saying, "Hey man, can I get a copy of those lyrics?" I got tired of having to try and remember to burn them a copy on cd, so thought, "Heck, I'll set up a server at home and they can download them to their hart's content."
I tried several of the all-in-one packages, but being totally blind and relying on a screen reader, most of them had interfaces that my screen reader just wouldn't work with. I looked at Abyss, read through the forums, FAQs, and the documentation, and said, "why not!" I downloaded Abyss, MySQL, the pre-packaged PHP536 available here, Hmailserver, and Active Perl, and with in an hour and a half to two hours had a server complete with my own domain, mailserver, MySQL databases, and ability to run scripts up and running. I'd say that's pretty darn easy. I've added the package OCPortal available at
http://ocportal.com and now have a home server for my family and friends that I'm completely happy with. I can keep a up-to-date press kit for prospective music buyers, I can share my lyric database, mp3 collection, family pics, have a chat board, message forum, and everything else I need, and I'm just tickled pink.
Aprelium ... You rock! Thanks.