[SOLVED] Simple Home Server

[moguy78]

I was thinking of making a file server out of an older computer that I'm
no longer using. The specs are: a 1.2 Ghz computer, 256MB of RAM, a
6.4 Gig hard drive, a Promise SATA controller, and (2) 500 Gig HD's in
a RAID 1 configuration. I won't be running anything directly from it
(streaming media, etc.), I'll just be using it as a simple file server
on my network. I plan on setting it up so that anybody can store or access
files on it, so I won't really need any security for it.

In the past, I've gone with one of the Microsoft OS's, but that seems like
overkill for what I need. I was wondering which Linux OS would be good to
use for this. I've been looking at FreeNAS, NASLite, and Openfiler. All
three seem fairly light and seem to be used for this purpose.

Between them, is there much of a difference in speed and stability?
Are they all fairly easy to set up and run?
For my purposes, which one seems best?

[valan]

I've never used any of those, but Slackware or Debian would both make good choices for your use.

[Roxoff]

I'd use CentOS (actually I do), but you might also want to consider SuSE server edition, and Ubuntu server in addition to those mentioned above.

If I were planning this for my own home, I'd go with CentOS or Debian and ditch the RAID (instead, I'd use both hard drives side by side and therefore plenty of storage).

[WDC]

I actually use CentOS on something quite similar to your setup there. I have absolutely NO problems with CentOS and I would recommend it. If you don't want to use CentOS 5.2, which is a little bulky, maybe go with one of the older CentOS releases.

Good luck,

David

[peonuser]

freenas is an easy setup, but if you want other services such as http, daap, or etc consider debian/ubuntu or centos. Openfiler is another choice.

[j1s]

I had FreeNAS for a while. I thought it was a bit tricky to set up the disks, but finally I managed it. After a while I changed to Ubuntu. Just because I needed more services installed.

I see now that you guys talked about this for ages ago...

Damn I'm slow...

[moguy78]

After trying out 3 different distros (CentOS, Fedora, and Ubuntu
Desktop), I finally decided on Ubuntu Server 8.04 since it just
uses the command line and it doesn't come with all the extra
apps. All I'm going to use it for is file and printer sharing,
so I just installed it with Samba and Print Server, plus OpenSSH
for remote access.

Thanks everyone for all the help!

[Roxoff]

That's cool. Glad you chose the distro that works for you.