Hi,

I have an old PC lying about which I would like to use as a network fileserver. The specs are P2 266MHz with 128MB RAM. Does anyone know if this is practical, or do I need a more powerful machine? If I can't do it, can anyone suggest a use for it in my network ?

Dave

As long as you aren't planning to run a GUI (Gnome of KDE ) on it, that PC should work fine for simple network file storage..

If you must install a GUI on that hardware, look at something like XFCE, Fluxbox, Blackbox, etc..

Hi,
your machine is not the fastest around... but You can still put it to good work.
Depending on the expected speed You may find it too slow for file serving (or not, network might be the bottleneck here).
Such a machine is perfectly suited to act as firewall/router and/or print server.
File serving will be possible, just do not expect too much
Your main bottleneck, for all these uses, is RAM, not raw speed (you do *not* want to run an SQL database engine or a dynamic web server!).
I suggest to take particular care saving as much RAM as You can, in order to use it for buffering. In particular avoid Xserver and stick to command line. Compiling a custom kernel with just what you need compiled-in (no modules) is another good way to save space.

HiH.

Thanks for all the useful ideas. Would it be possible to run some sort of virtual terminal over the network so that I can just leave it in the understairs cupboard and not have to connect monitor, keyboard etc?

I'm not too worried about the speed, its just for home files, and just to see if I can acheive it - just a case of what can I do with Linux today ?

I've not had so much fun on my computer since I ditched Windows...

Dave

You could manage it by connecting to it using SSH over the network. That would give you a command line shell.

You could install a web based management application like Webmin.

You could install a Distribution that is specifically designed to make the machine a file sharing box, something like Clarkconnect, NasLite, FreeNAS, SME Server, OpenFiler. Most of these have web based management interfaces..

Clarkconnect - http://www.clarkconnect.com/
NasLite - http://www.serverelements.com/
FreeNAS - http://www.freenas.org/
SME Server - http://contribs.org/
OpenFiler - http://www.openfiler.com/

Actually I doubt you will have any problems, even with KDE running, just don't set any fancy affects or high resolutions.
Since it will be as a server, there won't be much activity going on, so most CPU activity will be to file serving. Linux is not as power hungry as windows - by so SO FAR.
Any old machine that comes under my hands - its life is obvious - linux!

Thanks farslayer, that seems like the best solution to me. I will be researching on all of those, but does anyone have any opinions on any particular one of the distributions?

Dave

How experienced are you? Have you loaded and\or administered a linux box before? My first choice would be Debian stable, but a little more info about you and your experience would be helpful before recommending a distro for you.


sleepy

Before setting up a server, make sure you know the basic commands, as when you are in front of the command line and never used vim before, you could face a problem. Also keep in mind that most distros set up a DHCP connection, which is nice for installing programms you need (replace vim with ee, for example ... ) but probably not what you want at the end. So just don't forget to change it once the system is working. Finally, as farsplayer already wrote, don't use any GUI. I have an 166 Pentium MMX with 256MB as Samba server and it is reasonably fast once it finished booting (slow here: it takes about 1.5 minutes). Xorg takes lots of ressources on such a machine and does noticeably slow down it, like it or not. I'm using Ubuntu server, but I would recommend Debian for such tasks (Edgy reduced boot time, that's why I finally picked it, previous Debian Sarge had over 2.5 minutes to start!!!).

sleepyEDB: I have set up my kubuntu desktop, but that didn't appear to be too difficult, but never networking tasks. I have not done anything like this before using Linux, but that does not phase me at all. I will just research, ask advice and think my way through a problem. Having said that, I don't want it to be REALLY hard...

hansalfredche: I don't intend on using a gui at all. I know most of the basic commands, I am currently learning how to use vim, as it would appear to be excellent for programming, which was one of the reasons for moving on to Linux. I would think that boot time would not be an issue since this machine would presumably run 24x7.

When I looked through the dedicated OS described by farslayer, i narrowed things down to the SME Server or Openfiler, as the others were either ones you had to pay for, or written on BSD. I am now thinking of going with a standard distro which I can customise, and perhaps use as a firewall, and maybe email (don't know how far I can push this old machine though so i will start with the fileserver project first).

Ahh yes, even if you decide not to use one of the pre-assembled distros, they do give you a nice view of the possible items you can configure on your own.

If this is just for inhouse you may find Webmin to be very useful for assisting in admin tasks. you can view a config file, change a setting in webmin and view the config file again to see what exactly it changed.. Very useful while learning.
http://www.webmin.com/

Well, given you can use the tools which comes with a basic install and some reasonably good documentation, setting up a server isn't that hard. With vi/vim I just wanted to make sure you don't get stuck with a black screen and a programm you never seen before. I was once stuck with command line after fiddling around with the graphic drivers and vim made me mad. It's just so far away from my logic I couldn't do anything with it. But well, I already knew Knoppix at that time

So, installing the base system isn't difficult thanks to the installer most distros have, the harder part is configuring the apps and make it run smoothly. If you plan to add new tasks to your system, I would advise to use Debian or some other "all-round" distribution, because the ones designed for a specific task are likely to make more problems once they are assigned a task they wasn't designed for. The pre-assembled distros will give you access to more advanced functions more easily (preconfigured Web interface) while on Debian you will edit configuration files (just as powerfull, once you know how to do it), but that's up to you to decide.

Here a quick instruction how to do it with Ubuntu server. Of course use vi/vim instead of gedit. Don't forget to uncomment the lines, the author forgot to mention it:
http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Share_files_using_Samba

I'd still recommend Debian stable if you're looking for rock-solid dependability, especially since you say you're not even going to be using a GUI/desktop. Yes, the packages will be a bit old on stable, but if it's a server w/ no desktop, that shouldn't be too much of an issue. There are always backports available if you find you do need a newer version of a particular package.

Debian is set to push out the newest version within the next month or so, meaning the stable release will be updated as well. You can still build your server now if you'd like, because upgrading the box in the future should be easy as changing the mirrors in your sources.list file to the new addresses and runnning apt-get upgrade. I think.

As for webmin, the package is no longer maintained, and will not be included in the next version of Debian. I recommend checking out eBox instead.

The Perfect Debian Sarge Setup

Running an 'All-In-One' Server on Debian and eBox


sleepy

I'm beginning to be sold on using Debian, since I could eventually use for a mailserver as well.

I've got some great resources to look through, for that i am grateful. This project will be something to do over christmas when the family get a bit too much...

Cheers
Dave

Are you sure Webmin isn't maintained any more? The last stable release is from November 2006 ...