can you guy give any suggestion im planning to set up a network with 2 dsl connection.. (is it possible on linux)? actually it is an internet cafe with 35+ PC (window based) and a linux server .. im planning to use dlink swith capable of a gigabit transmission , 10/100/1000 lan card .. what other equipment will be required

It is very doable. I will creat a cool Howto than post it. Do you want a file or print server? Do you want a domain controller? What do you want the fire wall to block? Do you want to host a website for your shop? If so do you want to sell stuff on it. Let me know so I know what to put in your Howto.

connection only for internet and dual connection if possible i want to use 2 dsl connection .. using linux server for firewall ,print and file server ..

Cool use Smoothwall for the firewall and gentoo for the samba server. Reiser4 + samba rocks but only works with gentoo. The boxes do not need to be powerful. My firewall is a 350mhz pII with 192mb of ram and scsi. The File server is a 550 pIII with 384mb of ram and two 120gb ide drives.

Set samba like this

[global]
netbios name = cafename
security = user
guest account = nobody
map to guest = bad user
encrypt passwords = yes
workgroup = cafename
server string = Gentoo on %h cafename Samba %v
local master = yes
preferred master = yes
os level = 33
message command = sh -c '/usr/bin/receivepopup.sh "%s" "%f"'
socket options = IPTOS_LOWDELAY TCP_NODELAY SO_SNDBUF=8192 SO_RCVBUF=8192
printing = cups
printcap name = cups
printcap cache time = 750
cups options = raw

[apache]
comment = Apache2 web server
path = /var/www/localhost/htdocs
public = no
writable = yes
read only = no
guest ok = no
valid users = @apache

[books]
comment = Bookkeeper's Stuff
path = /home/bookkeeper
public = no
writable = yes
read only = no
guest ok = no
valid users = bookkeeper

[movies]
comment = Movies
path = /home/movies
public = yes
writable = no
read only = yes
guest ok = yes
guest only = yes

[public]
comment = Public Stuff
path = /home/smb.public.guest
public = yes
writable = yes
create mask = 0644
read only = no
guest ok = yes
guest only = yes

[shadowsurfer]
comment = shadowsurfer's Stuff
path = /home/shadowsurfer
public = no
writable = yes
read only = no
guest ok = no
valid users = enyawix

[pdf]
comment = PDF creator
path = /var/tmp
printable = Yes
print command = /usr/bin/smbprngenpdf -J '%J' -c %c -s %s -u '%u' -z %z
create mask = 0600

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/tmp
printable = Yes
create mask = 0600
browseable = No

My smoothie is only a P166 box with 64meg ram Actually I also have a P200 fileserver, but i just does 8gig of MP's....

Smoothwall uses very little cpu but ram is a big plus.

The [movies] share will use a good bit of cpu time in an iinternet cafe.

[movies]
comment = Movies
path = /home/movies
public = yes
writable = no
read only = yes
guest ok = yes
guest only = yes

How is Mandrake as a server? I run Debian smoothwall and gentoo.

Yeah, I know... I only got 8 PC's on the net here... Depends on what features the smootie is using as well... IDS, proxy, etc...

I can't see why any distro can't be a server. Some might take more setting up than others... I still have MDK 7.0 running on one old print and mp3 server...

I think i will go from Smoothwall to Gentoo. I have to rm my logs from time to time becouse the logs will fill up. I also want to go from snort to snort_inline snort will only log. http://snort-inline.sourceforge.net/