Hey y'all. I have an old PC that I want to set up to use as a server in my house. I have 4 computers that I want to network to it. I would basically want it to hold my music/videos so that i can listen to whatever i want on any computer. I guess it could be a good place to store my documents as well. It also should be able to communicate with OS X and Windows. The problem is that I've never set up any kind of server before and have no idea where to start, what i need to install, etc. Can anyone give me some pointers as far as a good (aka easy...at least until i get the basics down) Distro to start with and where to go from there. Or if you could point me to a guide/thread that might help that would be awesome! Thanks!

EDIT: I'm also a relative newbie to Linux, I've played with a few Distros (Ubuntu, Slax, Symphony, DSL, etc.) but that's about it.

The distro you use it really just a matter of personal preference. They will all work well as servers. I would personally recommend Debian, but that's just because I like the way it works.

As for file sharing, a program called samba will allow you to share your files with windows (and I assume OS X). Google for samba tutorials or how-tos to get you started with that, it's relatively easy to set up. Debian based distros should make installing samba a breeze with their package managers (as will most distros now).

As has been said, it's personal preference but Fedora comes with Samba almost up and running, and a GUI to config the rest...

Samba will share files to OS X, but only by virtue of the fact that OS X supports Windows File Sharing. Anything prior to OS X will NOT work with Samba (unless there's some kind of 3rd party app to enable it...)

That doesn't mean you can't still access the data on Linux via an OS 9 box, there are ways and means... But I don't know them, sorry!

I would also recommend samba as a protocol if all you want is to access your pictures and media from different computers in your house.

You could use ftp or vncserver or some such frivolity, but samba was designed for things like this so use it for that >>