Linux server question

[marroonheaven]

Hello - I am a student and I'm planning on converting my computer to act as a server for my home network and a probable website. I've tried WAMP in various varieties - even tried configuring it myself though that didn't go over great. My network has three computers, maybe four in the near future(fingers crossed) all running different os's - xp home, professional, and media center (and a possible ultimate). I know I really don't need a server, but I figure I got the time and the spare equipment so why not? So my questions are a.) what would be the best free distro for someone with a lot of time and fairly powerful soon-to-be server that is not necessarily easy to install but at least has a lot of documentation to be used for file serving and website hosting and b.) what exactly is application serving and what does it entail. Is it practical (or impractical but within reason) and what would I need. c.) One more thing - I don't need to use windows server 2003 for it to be accepted on my home network.(obviously I could use it as a web server either way, but what about for file sharing?) Tell me if anything I've said is completely crazy.

forgot - specs:
amd athlon 3800+
1gb pc6400 (corsair)
gigabyte GAM55SLI-S4
Evga 7300gt
2 x 250gb, 1 x 20gb hd's (wd, seagate, don't know)
gigabyte lan (when I get it to work)

[netstrider]

Not sure about all your questions but if you're looking for some stable distributions I'd say Debian and CentOS will do. CentOS being the free alternative to RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux).

There are probably several others, like Gentoo etc. which could do the same job. Hope someone can help you in more detail

Good luck.

[IsaacKuo]

a.) what would be the best free distro for someone with a lot of time and fairly powerful soon-to-be server that is not necessarily easy to install but at least has a lot of documentation to be used for file serving and website hosting

Debian Stable. The latest Debian Stable release is Debian 4.0, aka "Etch". For a desktop workstation, many people recommend Debian Testing, but for a server Debian Stable is a better idea.

b.) what exactly is application serving and what does it entail. Is it practical (or impractical but within reason) and what would I need.

If you have to ask what an application server is, then you don't need it. It's used mainly for intranet/internet web applications. For example, an application server can serve up an e-mail application. Typically, performance is worse than traditional locally installed applications, but for a large business managing applications installed on hundreds or thousands of workstations can be a major expense avoided with intranet web apps.

For a LAN with only a handful of computers, I can't see any reason to have an application server other than self experimentation/training.

c.) One more thing - I don't need to use windows server 2003 for it to be accepted on my home network.(obviously I could use it as a web server either way, but what about for file sharing?)

Linux will work fine as a file server for Windows computers. You'll have to do a little bit of configuration with SAMBA.

It will also work fine as any other sort of server except for Exchange.

amd athlon 3800+
1gb pc6400 (corsair)
gigabyte GAM55SLI-S4
Evga 7300gt
2 x 250gb, 1 x 20gb hd's (wd, seagate, don't know)
gigabyte lan (when I get it to work)

Everything here should be fine, except maybe for the LAN. If it's not working now, maybe it's because the hardware is bad--obviously changing operating systems isn't going to fix that.

[marroonheaven]

Thanks for all the advice - I'll probably try debian stable and steer clear of application serving, at least for the time being.