Can someone help me find a distro?
 

Ive read enough of these to know that there is always that "any linux distro can do that" reply, but Im looking for one that does these couple of things already, "out of the box".


I have a super old (p4, 2005) pc that I want to use strictly as a bittorrent machine. I'd like to have it in a closet with no monitor, so I'd like to be able to admin it through webui. The only other thing is that it'll need samba access to pull those files off of later. I don't know anything about scripts or anything like that.

I tried openmediavault, but the bittorrent there is transmission and Ive not had much luck with that program. I really liked deluge in lubuntu, but I dont know how to create a plugin for the distro and apparently Im the only one that doesnt like transmission. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I've always used transmission and had it work for me without issues, but it is a GUI program.

A Slackbuilds search for "bittorrent" turns up a number of different clients you could try (I'm not necessarily saying "use Slackware," except I do like it). Rather it was quick reference for me to find lists of apps you could research.

And, yes, any distro could to what you want, but I would recommend a straightforward distro which can be easily administered in a terminal or via ssh and which emphasizes stability over cutting edge, such as Slackware or CentOS--one that you could set up and let be, except for security updates.

I would include Debian also, except it takes a little doing to set up a standard Debian to boot to the command line, rather than to the graphical display manager.

Just my two cents.

I'm using xUbuntu 12.10 with Deluge, Deluged and Deluge-web quite successfully with x11VNC, Samba, MYSql, apache, Webmin, XBMC and ownCloud. (Dual core 3.0ghz, 4gb ram machine though), but over an 'el cheapo wireless dongle. Works a treat.

I use Lubuntu as little tesing environments out of VirtualMachines. That might be worth considering for you. I've had a Lubuntu boot into less than 140mb of ram with out to much trauma. You know?... kill bluetooth and the like

I've just installed Arch into a VirtMachine and will be building that up, for testing, with the view to moving everything into an Arch environment, cause it's damn fast and doesn't come with the bagage of Ubuntu.

From there?... MMMuuuhhhaaahhaaa Linux from scratch? :)

Can you run Virtual Machines on a box for testing, to see how somehting like Lubuntu may work out for you?

try lubuntu..

Hi and welcome to LQ!
Slackware, of course :)

I would add another vote for Lubuntu.
Lubuntu is very light on resources and is an excellent choice for older computers.
Lubuntu is also very beginner friendly.
Lubuntu can use Deluge just as easily as Xubuntu or any other member of the Ubuntu family, but it would run much better on an older computer.

FWIW, I currently use Debian 6 (no GUI) with Samba and Transmission (and a bunch of other services) as a headless server. Most people think that Transmission is GUI only, but that is simply not true, it has an inbuilt webserver, so that it can be used using a web-browser. It may help if you tell us what specifically you don't like/where the problems are with Transmission.

Er? All one has to do is uncheck "Desktop Environment" during the tasksel section of installation, which is always presented to the user.

Edit: I should have posted better than that on the subject...

roseysdaddy, I had Debian Squeeze (6) on a 2.8GHz P4 with 2 GB of ram, and it ran very well. It couldn't do all the super cool tricks of today's PC, but GNOME 2 started quickly as did most applications. I mention just in case you do want to have a GUI accessible. Even if without a monitor, if you need to access a GUI only application you find you need, there is always the possibility of running it via SSH.

Thank you, goumba and TobiSGD, for teaching me something today.

Kmandla's blog has some excellent, slightly outdated tutorials for converting an old computer into a torrent box:

http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/08...t-slave-setup/
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/05...nt-like-a-pro/
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/09...-old-computer/