turn server unit into pc using Ubuntu
 

hi my name is mark i have a intel L440GX dual cpu server
that i would like to use as a PC... i know i need a soundcard
everything else is in place . do i wipe out the Windows nt server 2000,
then put linux disc in?? or from the screens i see there is much this machine has way over my head... SCCI drive, 2 regular HD's,and what is
2 each 1ghz ECC RAM??? any help to step thru install of linux on this
will receive many thanks. mark ps i want to use this machine for(KPSK)

You should be able to just boot from the Ubuntu CD, and tell it to use the entire Hard drive. it should then automatically remove windows from the machine and install Linux..

ECC RAM is Error Checking and Correcting. common on servers, it basically is a double check that what is written to memory is correct and has not been corrupted. It should not affect your install in any way. If you want more detailed technical info on ECC you can scope out Kingstons Ultimate Memory guide.

SCSI Drives are just a different interface than IDE. Not a big deal they will be detected in Linux as /dev/sda instead of /dev/hda. SCSI drives were far superior to IDE drives for a long time. Again provided Linux detects the SCSI Disk controller properly, this should be no problem. If the server has a hardware raid controller, you will see only ONE drive in the system, because RAID is being handled by the SCSI Controller. this is very likely if that is a server.

If you are entirely new to Linux, you can try some of the so called "Live CD/DVD" - a distributions that do not need to be installed on the hard drive, but boot directly from the CD/DVD. A classic example for such is Knoppix, but there are others too. Another options is dual boot, but there's already a risk to damage your windows if not being carefull. And, at last, you can format your HD with some filesystem more native for Linux (it works with NTFS though, but there are better choices) and install it instead of windows. BTW, if you have more than one HD, you can install Linux on different drive than WIndows's, but you'll have to set the HD with the boot loader as first in the boot order. As for a distribution to recommend you - there are a lot of them, more or less differnet, yet they are all Linux after all and most of the knowledge for one of them applies to all. Most of them use either KDE or GNOME as a desktop environment, which have a lot of common look&feel with Windows. Besides, they usually come with a plethora of applications, from IRC to 3D modelling.