Is it possible to set my computer up as a server? Or to host a website on my own computer? I don't have money to pay for a host, and If I can do this, I figure hey, I've got 40gigs of free space here... Why even pay?

I guess I'm asking, what all can I do in the sense of offering content (that belongs to me, of course) to people who are interested? I mean, I don't need them to know I am hosting on my computer, I just would like to have a website. Any real drawbacks of this, assuming it's possible?

It depends on your ISP. Some of them block port 80 which means you can't serve up web pages on the default port. With that said, you can easily run a server from your house.

yeah, but even if they block port 80 i think there's several redirection services on the web... so like you could make the server listen on port 7777 for example... I THINK... maybe one of these folks does that:

http://www.no-ip.com

http://www.dyndns.org

drawbacks?? well, if your internet connection sucks then people will find the site slow... but the main drawback is SECURITY considering it doesn't sound like you have much experience yet... in other words, if you don't set everything up properly you might get OWNED and since all your personal data is on the PC it could be disasterous...

just my ...

This machine I'm on now is my webserver, my SSH server, my E-mail server, SAMBA server and sharing the internet connection. ^_^
All you need to do is install the server software and that's it. A name, an address to your machine?
www.dyndns.org and there are many others services like that (www.no-ip.com and so on)

So I can actually run a website off of my laptop? I have a cable connection and I think my upstream is around at the very least a solid 40kBps. That'd be decent I think for the type of stuff I had in mind. I am brand new to this as well, Win32Sux. And I'm even on my windows partition as we speak.. ughh..

Those links, frandalla, will help me find my way to becoming my own part time server?

That port 80 stuff I'm sure will come in handy as well, Crashed_Again, thank you all.

BTW anything better for my dell with nvidia than mandrake 10.1 by leaps and bounds?

sure, why not... you can run your website on anything you can install apache on...

Quote:

Those links, frandalla, will help me find my way to becoming my own part time server?

those are companies that provide free and paid DNS services... basically you use those to get a DNS address (domain or subdomain) for your website which will point to your IP address... what you need to read about is APACHE, the webserver... google some howtos, tutorials, articles, etc...

Quote:

anything better for my dell with nvidia than mandrake 10.1 by leaps and bounds?

by leaps and bounds?? i don't think so... maybe try a newer version of mandrake/mandriva?? also, i hear suse pro 9.3 rocks... if you don't mind configuring your box from the command line go with slackware...

slackware scares me at this point in my noobile development lol.

Apache, man, Mandrake asked if I wanted to install that. I told it no. arghh. I have only like a 6 gig piece of disk for it now n e way, I gotta move some stuff around and make some back ups and repartition for a solid reinstallation anyway, so no biggie i guess.

I'll look into apache and read up some more about linux and tell you guys how I made out! It'sjust so tough. It kinda hurts my brain trying to figure out the new names for basically the same things. Like whats the "device manager" called and stuff like that, but I've been reading more and more, I'll catch on somehow. I hate that I don't have anyone to work with on this kind of stuff around here. Beat. But, lemme go and study. Be back soon to read some more of the best advice a first post has ever recieved.

it's all good, just go into the package manager thinggie in the control center and install apache from there...

Quote:

I gotta move some stuff around and make some back ups and repartition for a solid reinstallation anyway, so no biggie i guess.

if i were you i'd install apache now (before re-installing the OS) and play around with it for a few days... that way when you re-install you'll be in better shape and have less chance to mess something up on the new install...

I'm a newbie and actually picked Slackware as my distro because it's thought to be more difficult. I figure that since I have to re-learn everything, I might as well learn the "hard" way and then everything else will be easier. Of course I've been playing with computers since 1982 and have had to learn everything over again several times already.

As for Apache, stick with it. I installed the full Slackware, and I only needed to configure Apache to run on my home network. I use it to view off-line pages. For instance, I saved off a page on configuring Slackware and use it when I'm not on-line.

F_M