Hello all,
I have an older (read 5 or so years old) laptop which I want to turn into a server for my house. The computer has a 60 GB Hard Drive, but if possible, I want to also use my 250GB external HD with it. At the most basic form, I want to be able to set up network folders that all my electronic devices could access (linux laptop, windows laptop, ipads and android tablets). Is this possible? I have most of the current distros on live cd already, although I could download a new one. Please be very specific or point me to a tutorial (all the ones I found are extremely old). All of these devices are on the same infrastructure wireless network.
Thank you

I have Amahi running on my laptop (bought it summer of 2005).

http://www.amahi.org/

What distros does it support for the install? It specifically mentioned Ubuntu and Fedora 14 as the install, what about Fedora 15?

What about ownCloud and Mirral on the new openSUSE, would those work?

Thank you.

They're skipping F15. They're currently upgrading the compatibility to F16.

Ubuntu is in Alpha or Beta (can't remember) but I would just recommend installing the Fedora version. I have it on Fedora 14.

It may also work on CentOS 6. I started user discussion in the developer mailing list for CentOS support because of the distro lifecycle which prompted user testing. Then patches were made fixing some inconsistencies.

For the most stable experience use what is recommended on the main page of their website in the install instructions.

I have never used ownCloud or Mirral so I can't give you a recommendation based on professional or personal experience. Really, to maximize your media capabilities you need Samba (for SMB filesharing), a web server for possible web sharing locally, DHCP, DNS, and something like PS3MediaCenter or XBMC which does transcoding for other devices.

I recommend DHCP because you can do neat things like PXE booting for recovery over the network which is useful depending on how many friends/family tap into your tech mind.

So if those services you mentioned include all that then you should be okay. I also have 5 hard drives hooked up and am using RAID 5 using mdadm but that may be a little advanced for you as I don't know your technical abilities.

SAM

Why not use slackware, and use lvm for your storage? It will run on pretty much any machine. Use samba, nfs, sshfs, or just dlna.

I don't need that much capabilities, what it almost comes down to me wanting at the least is something along the lines of a simple to set up webDAV or even a cloud. It also needs to be free, I will look into slackware as I have done an install of it before, just would need to change for the server.

i had intel p3 system & installed Red hat 5 Enterprise edition..you can also use same destro.i think it will work on your laptop

what kind of server you want to configure?

You have to pay for Red Hat though.
I just want a simple to run server for my family where files can be stored and opened by other devices. Don't even need direct sharing between devices, just to one central point, thinking of a webDAV/cloud, does Amahi work like that?
Thanks for the help so far, though.

try centos its free....

Yes (about Amahi), that's the way I use it. It comes with VPN working out of the box with dynamic DNS so you can always access your HDA and internal network remotely without having to remember your external IP. Just create an install code on how you want your network set up and then the Amahi installer will automatically take care of the rest. Very simple.

I know how to set up all the services individually but for my home solution Amahi was enough.

SAM