I would like to set up a FTP and Icecast server on my mainly Windows network. It should also scan all the networked computers with Clamav and do scheduled backups of them and record audio from the line in port.
It's a cheap PC (512MB RAM, Celeron 2130, etc.) and what it's supposed to do is pretty basic. I'm just wondering which applications I schould use for the FTP server, backups and audio recording (preferably scheduled). Is this a good idea?
Currently I'm doing some of the tasks from an old win98 machine and it keeps freezing an crashing, So that's why I'm getting this new PC.
I'm planning to do a server install of ubuntu breezy or maybe debian.
What do you suggest? This is the first time I'm setting up a Linux server till now, so I'd appreciate any help.

"This is a first for me with Linux, so I'd appreciate the help."
Posts: 957 ? Do you suffer amnesia?

You can do a great Linux server even with a 486 (no joke, apache ran as thunder on it), so your 512M celeron will just kick ass.

Debian/Ubuntu is a great choice to begin, because it's strong and easy to deal with, if you accept to think. If you want to go deeper into Linux and learn A LOT, you can also try Slackware, but you'll need to think more .

Vsftp is actually the most secure ftp server and is very easy to configure.

There's many way to do backups. rsync is probably the best. Here's a little tutorial here: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplan...orials/6227/1/
Never tried it on win$, but i think rsync should work.

You schedule all you want with cron jobs.

Enjoy!

I meant setting up a Linux server, not Linux. I've used Linux for quite some time, but this is the first time I'm setting up a server. Sorry if it sounded different, I'll edit it.

Thanks for the help. The reason I want a higher end PC for this is that in the future we might do more stuff with it, so it should be expandable.

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If you want to expand it, you can just let the default kernel available if you compile your own (good as you can tune options specifically for servers), and then just move the hard drive from a PC to another, boot the default kernel and recompile for the new hardware.
If you want to upgrade to SATA, you just have to create a partition for each folder from the IDE you want to move, then mount them, move data and edit /etc/fstab as you wish.

Sure, but I'd like to keep this PC, just add more RAM, better CPU, etc., in the far future (3 years, maybe). But for now, I'm happy with it. Thanks for all the help!