Best Distro and software...
 

I'm looking to build my own ftp server within the next week, I need it to download and upload files from multiple locations from multiple users usually with only one user accessing it at a time. Now, thing is I am not really sure where to start. But I will be running this on an old machine (celeron 650MHz, 256MB ram).

It dosen't need to have any kind of GUI, just to get the job done. So, what Distro's would be the best option along with some kind of Ftp software? oh and any direction to tutorials for this kind of thing would be helpful too.

I only have experience using debian, but I think it can do the job nicely. How much disk space do you have? I'd also suggest that you consider gentoo: compiling the stuff yourself may be empowering (you can do that in debian too...), but the portage files (i.e. the gentoo package manager) takes up one or two gigs of disk. I have no clue if slackware is any good. If you're sufficiently hardcore, consider LFS.

hth --Jonas

I'll have a ton of disk space. Roughy around 100GB, which I will only use about 20 gb maybe for my files.

Okay--more choices for you. Then I think the `least hassle' (and best) route frow what I know is to go with debian.

It all depends on your linux experience.

Debian is really a great choice, but you might have problems installing it if you lack experience.
Slackware and Gentoo go to the same category.

Ubuntu is always a great choice. Its a bit easyer to install and works great. Thats my recommendation.

Suse and Mandriva are great distros for desktop use, but for just fpt-server I guess they arent the best choices.

Debian would be the easiest. Security and version updates are a breeze on Debian. Slackware is a bit difficult with this.

I'd say Gentoo, just because I love portage... I'd really say FreeBSD (my ftp server is FreeBSD, took a good 20 minutes to set up), but youre looking at linux. If you want Debian, you could just use Ubuntu if youre new to linux.

Just as an afterthought: For a X-less Debian machine, your box will more then suffice (same goes for every other distro).

If you really only need an FTP server and don't want to configure much, consider Damn Small Linux. It's Debian based, and it comes with an FTP server that's only a mouse click away from being activated. If you install DSL to hard disk, you can configure the server to your wishes...

If this is too improvised for you, go for Debian - not Ubuntu, because you'll have to do much more configuring than when you set up Debian as a server system.

Sticky
 

Posting And You "You don't want the other kids to laugh at you because you asked a question that was answered in a sticky?"

2 post newbie the provides no info on his background, computer experience, or Linux experience and you recommend Slackware (and to a lesser extent, Debian)? What if he has no previous Linux experience? That's learning to swim by being thrown in at the deep end, and "Oh by the way, can you carry this cannonball for me." Might as well recommend BSD.

{Edit: OMG, somebody did!}

I will 2nd (or 3rd Debian). I think it gets a bit of a bum rap for being difficult, but I started with it as a newbie (no friend to hold my hand) and have found it to be great. Here's a great site for setting up Debian with a bunch of different servers and whatnot.http://aboutdebian.com/index.htm Plus there's other interesting "networking & computer basics" type stuff to help you understand why you're doing what you're doing...

I like proftpd better than wu-ftpd, but use what you like. Debian has (arguably) the most packages of any distro all at the touch of your CLI (i.e. apt-get install packagename)

Dragineez: well, he says he wants to set up an ftp server. The fact that he knows what an ftp server is proves he's at least somewhat competent around computers. The fact that he has a machine as old as listed suggests he's not completely unexperienced around computers either. I don't know how similar is to me, but I think that debian is not an unreasonable choice. It won't be dead simple, but it'll no doubt be doable--I did it, and I had only ca. one month of exposure to red hat 6, and that was at least a couple of years before I even planned on installing debian.

And you know, it turned out great. Sure, there were bumps along the way, and I don't know all the things that I could benefit from knowing about debian, but it worked from week 1, worked as flawlessly as possible from week 3, and has been working as flawlessly as possible ever since.

Also, just because debian lets you do things the "hard" way (I think this a matter of perception) doesn't mean it also can't let you do things the easy way (synaptic for installing programs, the whole gnome suite, once set up, looks very usable to me--I don't know what usability really is, so I can't say ;), the grub.lst config tool, the /etc/apt/preferences config subtool of synaptic, ... you know, there are gui tools for it).

my :twocents: --Jonas

Once again, there is a thread where Slackware is considered to be too hard. Why?

It is IMHO one of the easiest and most intuitive installations around, its stability makes for a superb server distro and by default it runs without X-Windows (you have to type "startx"). Also, since every server package you need comes with the distro there is no need to Apt or Portage anything. When you're ready to upgrade a package you "upgradepkg".

So I recommend Slackware or, if you've got plenty of time on your hands, I 2nd Gentoo. :)

Yawdt
 

My cut on it is that someone posting yet another "which distro" thread in this forum may not be very experienced at all. Certainly very little experience with online forums. Only 2 posts, both of which are in this thread - which he started. Joined LQ and immediately posted a "Yet Another Which Distro Thread". Asks for a tutorial, I guess without noticing the "Main Menu => Linux Tutorials". Do you think a STFW of "Linux FTP Tutorial" would return any hits? A simple search of this site would turn up a gazillion threads - and answers - on the very same question. The answer can be found in the sticky at the top. Lurking through the forum for - oh, what do say, one day? would reveal 3 or 4 threads on the same topic. My assumption about his base skill levels is far less optimistic than yours. Besides, do you actually know of any Linux distro that couldn't do what he asks?

Posted by Dragineez: Besides, do you actually know of a Linux distro that wouldn't do what he asks?
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I can think of one or two that I wouldn't recommend but I don't want to start yet another distro war so I'm not naming names. ;)

Those are some very convincing arguments that he doesn't know a lot about reading/searching this particular forum (and I don't object to the proposition "it generalizes"). That still doesn't say anything about his skill in configuring/installing/using Debian GNU/Linux, or Slackware, or Gentoo, or FreeBSD. There might be a correlation, and he might be in the 5% where the correlation fails, though. Anyways...

And since I've only used Debian, Ubuntu-Live, and SuSE-Live, I can't say I know of any distro which wouldn't do as he wants, but there's a whole lot of distros (incl. Ubuntu-Live and SuSE-Live) of which I don't know whether or not it'll do what OP wants. So I recommend what I know to work.

But I don't think Lindows will be a very good choice (too single-stupid-user-workstation-oriented), and I don't think LFS will be a good choice (too macho-geek-oriented). But those are just my guesses.