A DIY PC as a Linux Server
 

Hi folks,

I have a desktop with the following spec:

Mobo: Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe
CPU: Core i5 3570K
RAM: Cosair Platinum 2X4GB = 8GB 1600MHz DDR3
Gfx: nVidia GTX 560 Ti

If I use this as a Ubuntu server, how many UBuntu client can it support?

Many thanks!
Peter

As many as you want.

There are several applications which I intend to run on the server, that include Ubuntu OS, Apache, Squirrel Mail, Open Directory. The box will house the eMail, Web and DNS servers all-in-one. I just wonder if it can take the loading.

How man clients do you plan to connect to that machine?
I run Apache, Samba, vsftpd, Dovecot, Squid, dnsmasq, a rsync server and SSH on a machine with Atom CPU and 1GB of RAM, but I don't use it as desktop machine and I only have a maximum of 12 clients here, so your mileage may vary.
With a machine like yours you should be able to serve to a serious number of machines.

Unless the Web server has some heavy server side applications running, your bottleneck serving Web, Mail and DNS to many users simultaneously will be bandwidth for network and/or HDD access. Once you saturate this bandwith, a second load balanced NIC and/or a good SATA Raid expansion card will help.

BTW, if this will be a pure server you can take out the NVidia card and use the onboard VGA to save you some electricity/heat, or better yet use no video output at all.