Hello,

I've spent the past week first setting up a Debian sarge workstation with KDE - got through the video issue - the audio issue / with alot of reading. Am in the process on that box to setup a multimidea recording machine. (I play the drums and do some recording for the band I'm currently with)

Yesterday through today I got a sarge file server up with KDE - Samba - Squid - SquidGuard - Webmin - and am looking to have it possibly take over as a PDC in my mixed platform home network.

As I was pruning through the interface of Webmin I notice alot of options available. (not loaded of course)

My question is how many modules can you acctualy run and a pc say with 512 mem / 20 gig HD 500 processor / dual nicked.

I'm looking to take the server and add Dansguardian and then work on making it a firewall/router to seperate my cable modem from my wired / wireless home network.

Should I look at boosting my current server box? Or do I stand a chance getting away with what I have.

I tell ya I've really gotten into Linux. I've spent a couple days straight playing / reading / and testing the software.

I'll close here.

Thanks - good to meet you all. Mike...

You're a couple of miles ahead of the average newbie---and also out in front of a lot of the "experts".
You might want to request that this be moved to different forum--server? programming?

EDIT: no server forum--maybe software?

It's rather difficult to estimate the workload you are putting on it. Why don't you set it up and monitor for a while. 512 MB is lots of RAM for a GUI-less box.

Pixellany & Emerson,

Thank you for your replies. There is so much to learn. I guess the reason I've gotten so much done is I just had a daughter and am on two months of leave also I'm the type that If I'm into something like to learn as much as I can.

With the time, a couple of old pc's, the internet, and all the software out there for linux I thought I'd check it out.

I'm currently finishing up a stuy on Iptables and howto's on firewalls.

Again thanks and take care.

Have a look at Endian Firewall if you're after a firewall / router... It will fly on that box

Congrats on your progress - you are doing all the right things! ie. reading and learning through trial and error.

As some posters have said it is difficult to say whether your resources are enough. I run an Internet/NTP time/email/NAT server with a similar rig and it copes fine. I have run MonMotha's firewall for a few years and find it works well as a firewall and NAT router. I have a write-up on it on the server which you can follow here. It is Debian biased and you should have no problems following it. MM's firewall script is very easy to understand and implement and tune to your own needs. I would also suggest not running an X server in this kind of application for a number of reasons. Firstly, resources but also security. I do most of my work on the server (which has no screen or keyboard) using an ftp client called KBear from another box running Debian/KDE. Also implement ssh and rsa keys to maximise security. Hope this helps.
Rob