Because I am interested in OSs, for years I have maintained a multi-OS box (well, laptop). In addition, the only domain I ever purchased was for my personal website, which I elected to have someone else host. I have never really explored beyond very basic networking ... for years I had a DSL account with a static IP address & now I have cable 'Net access and use DHCP ...

... I guess the dumb question I am trying to meander my way towards is ... I would like to explore things like setting up mail receipt / delivery / filtering, etc. I have never done this because I have an email account at freeshell.org and just ssh to that. Do I need to purchase a domain to do this easily & finally give this box a name?

I conducted a brief experiment in getting my freeshell.org email delivered locally (using KMail) & it was kind of a disaster ... it seems if my laptop actually had a name it would all be more transparent (at least to my feeble brain). I mean DHCP is assigning it an IP but that IP is not set in stone, right? That is after all why the protocol is called "Dynamic."

Am I way off base here?

Of course I would wind up with an assortment of emails on each OS ... since I often switch around ...

Babblingly,

GB

If you want a computer to be accessed from outside--using a name instead of an IP--then you have to register that name. It does not matter if you are going to use it for web hosting, email, or just remote access using --eg-- SSH.

Be aware that many ISPs do not allow you to use your connection in this way---check the fine print.

Many Cable ISP's use static DHCP which means you get the same IP every time check to see if thats the case. You can also use just IP address if you like no Domainname. You might also be able to use something like no-ip.com to save money.

Port 25 might be blocked. You may want to check that out before investing a lot of time in setting up a mail server.