What should be the min requirements. I was just going to use it for learning purposes. I was thinking roughly:
p3 500mhz
5-10gig hdd
512-1gig ram
on card video and sound
wireless d-link adapter
ethernet 10/100 ethernet card
(not sure which card yet but one of those)
any suggestions
p.s. how would an laptop be for a sever?
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Buying a computer to act as a server..
A laptop would be fine for a server if you don't mind the obvious limitation (only one drive?). Of course, I suppose you could add USB drives, PC Card drives and stuff so it's maybe not that much of a limitation. I've never tried adding a USB drive to my server though. Is it possible (don't know why not)? I might want to some day. I don't know.
I have a SMB server I made out of an old P-II 400mhz motherboard with 64mb of RAM. It works fine, although running a GUI on it is rather painful, as the mouse cursor moves slowly, and of course, programs also run slow. But for a file server it works just fine. I don't think the SMB speed is affected by the slow processor. I've had it setup as a server for about a year, but just switched over to Debian recently. It used to be on NASLite, which was great, but I wanted more options.
I have a SMB server I made out of an old P-II 400mhz motherboard with 64mb of RAM. It works fine, although running a GUI on it is rather painful, as the mouse cursor moves slowly, and of course, programs also run slow. But for a file server it works just fine. I don't think the SMB speed is affected by the slow processor. I've had it setup as a server for about a year, but just switched over to Debian recently. It used to be on NASLite, which was great, but I wanted more options.
What does SMB server mean and what is NASlite?RWIndiana wrote: I have a SMB server I made out of an old P-II 400mhz motherboard with 64mb of RAM. It works fine, although running a GUI on it is rather painful, as the mouse cursor moves slowly, and of course, programs also run slow. But for a file server it works just fine. I don't think the SMB speed is affected by the slow processor. I've had it setup as a server for about a year, but just switched over to Debian recently. It used to be on NASLite, which was great, but I wanted more options.
NASLite is pretty cool. It is a version of Linux that runs on a single floppy disk. That's actually quite handy because you can keep a backup of the entire operating system on top of your computer should your boot disk go bad. it turns most any old computer (486 or above) into a dedicated file server, with minimal setup involved. NASLite was my first experience with Linux (though it didn't teach me a lot, as there's not much to play around with). But, due to the fact that it must fit on a single floppy, the only thing one can use it for is making a server. I recommend it, though I like Debian better because of greater configurability and nifty options (like "cron" which someone here informed me about recently - that allows you to schedule the server to do internal tasks, and "noflushd" which allows the server disks to spin down when not in use, among other things). Also, NASLite doesn't recognize any hard disks besides the first four on the two IDE channels built into your motherboard.
SMB . . . it was only a year ago that I didn't know what that meant (I sometimes forget I'm still a newbie)! Anyway, all it is is the protocol that Windows uses to share files. That's what you want if you're looking to build a file server for Windows computers to share. Stay away from NFS unless you have all Linux/UNIX machines (NFS is the UNIX sharing protocol), since Linux can access SMB as well.
SMB . . . it was only a year ago that I didn't know what that meant (I sometimes forget I'm still a newbie)! Anyway, all it is is the protocol that Windows uses to share files. That's what you want if you're looking to build a file server for Windows computers to share. Stay away from NFS unless you have all Linux/UNIX machines (NFS is the UNIX sharing protocol), since Linux can access SMB as well.
Awesome information RWIndiana, thanks for taking the time to type that all outRWIndiana wrote:NASLite is pretty cool. It is a version of Linux that runs on a single floppy disk. That's actually quite handy because you can keep a backup of the entire operating system on top of your computer should your boot disk go bad. it turns most any old computer (486 or above) into a dedicated file server, with minimal setup involved. NASLite was my first experience with Linux (though it didn't teach me a lot, as there's not much to play around with). But, due to the fact that it must fit on a single floppy, the only thing one can use it for is making a server. I recommend it, though I like Debian better because of greater configurability and nifty options (like "cron" which someone here informed me about recently - that allows you to schedule the server to do internal tasks, and "noflushd" which allows the server disks to spin down when not in use, among other things). Also, NASLite doesn't recognize any hard disks besides the first four on the two IDE channels built into your motherboard.
SMB . . . it was only a year ago that I didn't know what that meant (I sometimes forget I'm still a newbie)! Anyway, all it is is the protocol that Windows uses to share files. That's what you want if you're looking to build a file server for Windows computers to share. Stay away from NFS unless you have all Linux/UNIX machines (NFS is the UNIX sharing protocol), since Linux can access SMB as well.
