Let me just add an observation.
We may take one easy step toward this goal. I agree that all the ideas that have been mentioned so far need to be done, but could we reach for some "low hanging fruit"?
I'm somewhat midway between an installation expert and a "regular" user. I just happen to install the latest UBUNTU release on my laptop. You install a CD, and then this program called "adept" shows you a huge list of packages to install with just one click. I patiently reviewed this long list and Moodle was there. So, with one click, and after answering a few questions about installation parameters that adept took care of, I had an instance of moodle running (haven't tried it, I was just curious about its installation)
I kept browsing through the package collection, and I found:
* aolserver4 (4.0.10)
* aolserverdoc
* nscache
* nsimap
* nsldap
* nsopenssl
* npostgres
* nssha1
Of course, you have also postgresql. The other thing that surprised me is that you may install the latest TCL, which right now is 8.4.10 and when checking for thread support:
$ tclsh
% info exists tcl_platform(threaded)
1
% info patchlevel
8.4.14
%
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that out of all the steps that need to be followed to deploy OpenACS/.LRN, the most difficult ones are no longer there.
I haven't tried it yet, but It seems a regular user may start installing OpenACS/.LRN from the section "Prepare the database" on and bypass compiling AOLServer, modules, etc. Are we that far away from providing an OpenACS/.LRN package for UBUNTU that puts the user one click away from having a painless installation?
The fact that Dell will now offer the choice to have Ubuntu pre-installed should not be overlooked either.
Cheers.
