home server setup

[~Craig~]

Right I needs some advice...I've just bought myself an el cheapo HP ML115 server and a couple of 500gb disks (already have some extra RAM).

http://www.thehut.com/hut/10008117.product

I can decide what O/S to put on it....I have a couple of other laptops which we use for day-to-day browsing and I will be using this machine for shared storage, printing and maybe the odd bit of general Office, email stuff.

At the moment I'm swaying towards the desktop version of Ubuntu (mainly because it's free) but i'm open to suggestions.

 

[bogeyman]

Right I needs some advice...I've just bought myself an el cheapo HP ML115 server and a couple of 500gb disks (already have some extra RAM).

http://www.thehut.com/hut/10008117.product

I can decide what O/S to put on it....I have a couple of other laptops which we use for day-to-day browsing and I will be using this machine for shared storage, printing and maybe the odd bit of general Office, email stuff.

At the moment I'm swaying towards the desktop version of Ubuntu (mainly because it's free) but i'm open to suggestions.

Go with Ubuntu - can't go wrong really.

 

[pmeswani]

Right I needs some advice...I've just bought myself an el cheapo HP ML115 server and a couple of 500gb disks (already have some extra RAM).

http://www.thehut.com/hut/10008117.product

I can decide what O/S to put on it....I have a couple of other laptops which we use for day-to-day browsing and I will be using this machine for shared storage, printing and maybe the odd bit of general Office, email stuff.

At the moment I'm swaying towards the desktop version of Ubuntu (mainly because it's free) but i'm open to suggestions.

Put linux on the server and make it into a web content / virus filtering proxy and email server (e.g. Squirrelmail) and enable a webmail frontend so that you can view your emails locally. Most Linux Distro's should handle it. Ubuntu as a desktop... can't comment... haven't used it yet.

HTH.

 

[Durbs]

Right I needs some advice...I've just bought myself an el cheapo HP ML115 server and a couple of 500gb disks (already have some extra RAM).

http://www.thehut.com/hut/10008117.product

I can decide what O/S to put on it....I have a couple of other laptops which we use for day-to-day browsing and I will be using this machine for shared storage, printing and maybe the odd bit of general Office, email stuff.

At the moment I'm swaying towards the desktop version of Ubuntu (mainly because it's free) but i'm open to suggestions.

Good choice of server, i've got one of those. Cheap but speedy and very well built.

I'm running Windows Home Server on it. Would i recommend it - No. Few weeks ago the answer would be yes but i'm looking for another solution myself now.

(and am partly wanting to wipe WHS off it so i can play with Windows 7 too).

 

[~Craig~]

Good choice of server, i've got one of those. Cheap but speedy and very well built.

I'm running Windows Home Server on it. Would i recommend it - No. Few weeks ago the answer would be yes but i'm looking for another solution myself now.

(and am partly wanting to wipe WHS off it so i can play with Windows 7 too).

Just downloading the beta for windows 7 now. Will probably run as a VM in Ubuntu and have a play.

 

[VectraMan]

Why the desktop Ubuntu instead of the server version?

 

[blacjac]

Good choice of server, i've got one of those. Cheap but speedy and very well built.

I'm running Windows Home Server on it. Would i recommend it - No. Few weeks ago the answer would be yes but i'm looking for another solution myself now.

(and am partly wanting to wipe WHS off it so i can play with Windows 7 too).

Why the change of mind?
I am currently considering building a windows home server....

 

[~Craig~]

Why the desktop Ubuntu instead of the server version?

Ubuntu server is command line only so rules out using it as a 'standard' workstation as well. I should be able to install a lot of the useful server add-on's in the Desktop version anyway..i.e Samba.

I'm going to set it up with Raid1 and copy over my itunes librbary etc as you can setup other machines to use an itunes library located on a network drive.

 

[Ardesco]

Ubuntu server is command line only so rules out using it as a 'standard' workstation as well. I should be able to install a lot of the useful server add-on's in the Desktop version anyway..i.e Samba.

I'm going to set it up with Raid1 and copy over my itunes librbary etc as you can setup other machines to use an itunes library located on a network drive.

Easily changed with an 'apt-get install kde' or 'apt-get install gnome' depending on your flavour of choice. I personally would go for a debian server, more stable than Ubuntu as they don't grab all the latest bells and whistles until they have been beta tested by the other distro's (like ubuntu)

 

[lilelvis2000]

CentOS 5.2 is also very stable and comes with a decent GUI - GNOME I think.
The latest Ubuntu - 8.10 has been panned by reviews - go with 8.04 LTS or try the new Fedora.

Another option is FreeBSD which IMHO is lighter and faster than Linux. and has far better docs. You won't find the need to constantly search forums and websites for answers to simple questions.