Hi I am new to this forum and Linux. I have a Compaq server which I used to run MS Small Business Server 2000 on a year ago and want to format this and bring the server up on Linux as a file server, it has four hard drives. I want to use this from my wifes PC and my Power Mac to store MP3 and photo's. I was advised by a friend to get Fadora Core 3 which I downloaded last night and just wanted to check this is ok for a newbie. I have setup plenty of Windows servers/networks in the past but never Unix/Linux.

My server is an Intel PIII 933Mhz 1GB RAM

Any advise would be welcome.

Thanks

Welcome to LQ. While Fedora Core 3 might be considered overkill for a simple file server, I'm sure it will have some nice GUI wizards to walk you through the process of setting it up. Regardless of which distrobution you use, you will want to familiarize yourself with Samba. You didn't mention what OS your wife's PC was running, but I will assume it is Windows. Samba allows file and printer interaction between Linux and Windows PC's. As for your Power Mac, if it can speak the Windows network language, then I'd assume it could also interact with Samba as well.

One word of advice if you decide to go with Fedora Core 3. After installation (or during installation), make sure to disable any unnecessary deamons that you won't be needing (like Apache, for example). Some distros install with a lot of extra stuff running that you won't need.

Hi My wifes PC is running XP Pro and my Mac is running OS X. I beleive they will both communicate with Samba without to much trouble. I find it interesting about you seem to think FC3 is overkill, maybe I should use something else which is ideal for what i need at this time and I would say the folowing would be ideal.

File Server
Print Server
Web Server for testing of any website work
Maybe a mail server at some stage

Thanks

Don't get me wrong -- FC3 will do the job. You may just find at some point in the future, when you are comfortable with Linux and the underlying configuration files for the services you mentioned above that a "leaner" distrobution might be a better fit. For instance, for purists, if you are setting up a dedicated server, you might decide not to install X or anything related to X (KDE/GNOME, etc.) and do everything from the command-line. Or not. That's the beauty of Linux -- install exactly what you need to do the job.

But for now, it may be easier to walk through some GUI wizards than trying to figure out the structure of the various ".conf" files.