Linux LAN Home Server
 

Hi,
thanks for this great place to ask questions.
Some questions might not be new. But since I am new to Linux I'm not able yet to put together the snippets out of other questions and answers.

I got a LAN at home.

US Robotics Router/Firewall

Main workstation with dual boot Linux / WinXP.
- Scanner
- Printer

Notebook with WinXP.

Old PC not used at the moment.

So here is what I want to do:
The Old PC will be my Home LAN Server.

I want to store Files on it.
Beside local storage of Files, I would like to connect to the AFS at university where I have my drive. Is it possible to have SAMBA (is SAMBA a good joice) connect to the AFS and show it to me local as just another Drive in my LAN? Without having to mess with AFS Clients for windows and stuff.

Another cool feature would be to connect some FTP drives I got. I have some webspace I dont use. I would like to have SAMBA connect them to my storage pool too. :-)

What software combination do you recommend? I would like to use Debian as base distribution, since I want to configure a minimal system to do the job. The other Ditros install and configure to much stuff I don't need wich only confuses me.


I want to use it as print Server.
Which software?

I want to use it as Mailserver. I got several Mailaccounts (5 at the moment) which I use for different purposes. I would like to have my local Mailserver collect them all and store them. I want to read them from any Client using Outlook.
Which software do you recommend? Sendmail?

Since I read a few Mailinglists I would Like to ask how you manage those lists. I do it by Outlook rules which move the Mails into folders. What software do you recommend to manage Mailinglists and Newsgroups which allow thread view and other features.

Any hint to the questions is appreciated.
/Cheers
Nap

bump

I think debian is a great idea... My reccomendation is to just do it and ask specific questions when you run into problems. My vote on mail server would be postfix. Everything else really sounds like a matter of perference - just eperiment and see what works best for you and what doesn't work at all. Thats the best way to learn.

Guide
 

And is there any guide on the internet how to setup such server? I would like to hav it 2...

The first step would be to just get debian installed - from there you can configure it any way you like. Start here:

http://www.debian.org/

There are some comprehensive installation guides. Download and burn a copy of the latest installation CD (Debian 3.0r2) and then follow the installation instructions.

my vote would actually go to Slackware. I can't say anything for or against Debian, since I havn't used it, but Slackware can be very minimalistic, and you definately don't need to install more than what's necessary.
For mail server, I would go to http://www.linux.org/apps/all/Daemons/Mail.html and check out what's listed there, and then compare the products. But like I said, you should look at slack as a possible alternative to debian. The servers and apps in slack are top-notch and are easy to set up.