I need to know what exactly is involved in running a development server?? I am going to use linux debian as the OS and the system has 8gb memory 500gb hard drive and an i5 CPU that clocks @ about 2.40GHz. I am new to linux but I need to run a developers server so that work can be done on it rather then on the production server. The production server has a splash page asking people for their login details to access the wi-fi provided and it has the ability to stream movies, games, newspapers, etc. when connected to it. The production server has Ubuntu 11.10 on it at the moment but that is going to be changed to Debian soon enough.

I really need to know what exactly is involved in setting up and running a development server with Debian on it. Such as, should I install the interface or use the CLI and how easy or difficult it will be to go about setting it up without really any linux experience.

well a development server is really whatever you want it to be. It could be a clone of a live environment, requiring extremely high levels of synchronization between the code bases running on each system, or it could just be a play system for developers who want a quick place to try stuff on a unix like system... You need to understand what you want to achieve before we can full in the blanks.

Do you want version control through code repos via git or subversion?

Do you want to be compiling c code?

Do you want to be developing code on that machine, or just testing it there?

Do you want to be able to be confident that anything on the dev box WILL work exactly the same as on the live system?

Do you need access to common data sets of test data etc?

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I want to be compiling c and java code and be able to develop code on the system but also test the code. I want it to work the same as on the live system as well. The ability to access common data sets of test data is needed also. What is version control through code repository git and subversion??