Greetings all,

I'm a new linux user but a long time geek (windows) and decided to dive into the world of linux not long ago. So far I've played with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Mint, Puppy and SUSE and so far i really like Mint the best. Now it was time to dive in deep so I built a server to run Ubuntu Server and take it to another level. My hardware spec's are as followed.
MSI NF750-G55 Motherboard
AMD Athlon II x4 620
8GB Patriot 1333 RAM
2 500GB WD SATA HDD
4 1000GB WD SATA HDD
Athena 4U Rackmount case

I have a rather large family so I have built my kids their own desktops including a system for my wife and a gaming system for myself.
We have 7 Win-7 desktops and 2 linux desktops running on my network.
My linux are Mint and Kubuntu for me to play with so they dont do anything special as of right now.
However, I do have the Ubuntu server running minecraft & Teamspeak 3 for the kids but I would like to utilize the true power and perhaps have the kids log in to a domain environment and maybe use the server as a file and print server as well. My main goal here is to have more control over the home network to keep the kids safe and out of trouble, monitor their usage and what not. My kids have followed my footsteps and practically grew up with keyboards in their hands so they are computer smart in a windows world.. Any idea's or suggestions are welcomed and appreciated.
As far as my knowledge with linux, well I'm wet behind the ears but I'm not afraid to dive in so don't worry about getting to complicated

Hello and welcome to LinuxQuestions,

That's one of the most interesting introductions I've read in a long time... Congratulations on diving into Linux, you'll soon find out which one is the better one from a technical point of view, the one you come from or the one you'll soon be using for everything. You seem to have your work cut out with that home network. Any doubts and questions, feel free to post them here, you'll find the LQ community a very helpful one.

Looking forward to your participation in the forums. Have fun with Linux.

Kind regards,

Eric

Nice job. Keep up geekwork.

So... ideas for the server. Some of these I do and some I dont but are doable in a fairly painless way.

1. Media server for streaming music (firefly, mediatomb)
2. Samba server for file and print sharing and as a domain controller if you want.
3. Apache/Wordpress so your kids can keep journals and get some writing and web content creation experience.
4. Amanda automated backup services for backing up the desktops to the server.
5. Proxy server for content filtering. (although whats available for a linux server is pretty sparce or poorly maintained). You may want to look into something like OpenDNS for that.
6. Asterisk server for your own sophisticated home phone system.

Have fun

Cheers

Mike

nice rig, very similar to mine, except I have an X6 and only 3x1TB drives.

what I did was this:
1000GB drives went into a RAID 5 and host all my data.
1st 500gb drive hosts root and backs up to 2nd 500gb drive.
2nd 500gb drive hosts all of my virtual machines (running KVM).

I then do all my playing in KVM rather than on the host.
so you can set up all of the different servers and play-things you want without the threat of messing up your host.

I've got 2 different media servers
1 ftp server
1 dns server
my entire RHCE lab
etc..