I have an old Compaq NT Server, dual PII 450's and a raid array with 3 9gig scsi's. I am new to linux and have put Mandriva 10.2 "2005 LE" on my laptop. I am very happy with it and am getting to know how to use it quite well. I am now ready to try my hands at building a linux file server for my network. Heres my question, what distro is recommended? I would like something that is user friendly, that will support the dual CPU's and the scsi HD's. I am thinking about not even putting any type of X windows on it to help me get more proficient at the terminal. I think i will use some type of encrypted FTP to serve the files, unless someone can give me some suggestions. Thanks for your help, any comments on this subject or recommendations will be appreciated!

RS

i have a server running fedora and it has given me flawless performance for many months now. I use VSFTPD for my ftp client. havn't hooked a monitor up to it since the day i set 'er up! honestly, i think any distro would work for your purposes. If all i wanted was a file server, i would choose somethign that can be upgraded via ssh - which is most distros. with fedora i just ssh into my server and do a "yum update" then let it go. very very simple and nice

Really, the differences between distros lie mainly in the desktops and what wizards and other little features have been added. For a server it is all about what you feel comfortable with and how much is set up out fo the box.

Generally for a server you want stability. That pretty much throws out Fedora, Mandrake, SuSE (unless you want Novell stuff), and Ubuntu - all of these distros are good, but don't go through nearly as much testing as some other distros. Debian would work well as it is very stable and is easily patched and kep up-to-date via apt. Slackware will be a bit of work (but not nearly as much as eeryone claims) but all of the packages are as clost to stock as you could want meaning that each package's online documentation is the best source for help (example: for Apache stuff head to Apache's website, not Slackware's). You *will* learn something by building a Slackware server.

There are several alternatives to these choices, but they are all smaller, more focused distros that may have issues with support due to the limited user base. Head to DistroWatch if you really want to look around.

i second gort32's reply. if i had had a debian disk handy, i'd have a debian server. but, i didn't so i decided to go with fedora, and it has been rock solid. slackware is good, too, but like he said - more work. i guess the best would be a minimal gentoo install .... even more work. go with debian.

Good idea. Don't run X on a server. In fact, don't run any services you do not absolutely need. As for administration you will want to configure ssh, and you can think about using its sftp subsystem for delivering files.

The latest stable version of Debian is probably a wise choice (so I've read), but personally I'd go for FreeBSD (which is not Linux) if you want to learn something new. FWIW, I have run a SuSE ssh server for a long time and have not had problems with it. You can maintain a stable environment with any number of distros so long as you're not trying to stay on the bleeding edge. In the context of SuSE that means don't run the YOU updates until you've thoroughly tested them, unfortunately.

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