I'm a linux Nub
 

So I decided that next semester I would turn my old 550mhz box into a linux server to handle my file sharing. I'm learning basic Linux commands using Knoppix 3.7, and I'm wondering if anyone has some useful info for me; such as: suggestions for a Linux OS, HD formatting, Software to use etc? Keeping in mind that I am a noob.

My webserver runs CentOS, the free version of Red Hat Enterprise. It has a nice graphical setup, and should be sufficient for what you want to do. I'm not much of a Linux person either, but that's my suggestion.

It really depends on how much time you are willing to invest.

If you want an almost "plug 'n play" solution, you would be better off with a pre-compiled package based linux-distribution. Examples are: SuSE, Mandrake, RedHat, ...
Most of them have nice, graphical installers, so they shouldn't give you any trouble to install.

If you wish to gain performance and if you want to learn more about linux on the long term, you should play with one of those distro's for a while until you feel confortable using it. Then you can switch to a home-compiled solution like Gentoo. This will give you a system that is tailored to your needs and your hardware. Needless to say that this takes some tinkering and won't come right out of the box. But in the long term, you'll learn _alot_ about the internal workings of the OS and you'll be certain to have the _exact_ system you need.

On the partitioning: I always get the mandatory swap, root (/) and boot (/boot) partitions (/boot isn't strictly necessary, but I'd advise you to get it anyway).
I also have the user homedirs (/home) on a seperate partition and an extra hd mounted on /share. This way I can mess up my OS and not lose my user data...
I'd also advise you to take double of your ram size as swap space...

550mhz is a decently fast computer and can run linux pretty well. Regardless about what the minimum requirements are as stated by the distro. I am saying this because I am running a graphical desktop on a much slower 333mhz PII and it works well enough for my needs. If you are willing to invest more time, a distro like gentoo is definatly worth getting into.

and if you are really good, you can run your server completely command line ;) .

P.S. if you are just running network file sharing you should use Samba, that is pretty much what people use. (you probably know that from knoppix)

Thanks for your answers. Belenar, What do you mean when you say "home-compiled"? and what can I do to learn at a faster/ more efficient rate?

There are 2 major ways in which distributions handle software packages:

1. BINARY (pre-compiled): They compile the package with the most common options and without optimalisations for a specific CPU type, before they 'ship' it to the customer. This way it will run on all x86 platforms for instance, but it will not use optimalisations like MMX and SSE, which are found in your P3. This makes the package a little slower. Afterwards you can still tweak the software to your needs by rewriting the config file, but you will never be able to use the hardware optimalisations.
Advantages: Fast and easy to install
Disadvantages: Not optimized for your needs/architecture, making it a bit slower

2. SOURCE (home-compiled): They ship source code instead of binary files to the customers. You get to decide which CPU optimalisations you want to use, communications with other installed packages will be verified, you can select exactly the options you need and leave the others out, ... This gives you full control over your installed software. Offcourse, this requires a lot of tinkering and compile time (compiling an entire system om your p3 will most likely take about 3-4 days, depending on how many packages you need). And often you will be searching through manuals to figure out which options serve which cause...
Advatages: Full control, ultimate performance
Disadvantages: Takes time (lots of it)

Hope you understand what I am writing here, because it all seems simple if you are into it, but I can imagine this seems a bit complicated if you have no experience in the matter.

Now on the learning curve... The fastest way to learn your way around linux is the following: Use the command line for as many tasks as possble. All the graphical configuration interfaces are just ways to edit text files, that are in /etc. So my advice is: configure all your apps by editing these text files, try to use Terminals instead of graphical frontends, ... If you feel confortable using the command line and you don't freak out when you have to rewrite a config file, I'd say you're ready.
Gentoo has a very nice online install manual, which can easily guide you through the install process, and a _lot_ of online guides & documentation, so I guess anyone with a bit of linux understanding and a lot of time would be able to pull it off...
Welcome to sleepless nights and energy drinks ;)

Thanks for the info, and as a college student and gamer i'm way ahead of you on sleepless nights and energy drinks :dome:

Update: I've been using Debian for a while now. I installed kernel version 2.4.27 and then spent 1 and a half weeks trying to upgrade to 2.6.10. I had finally got it running when the HD went out, but Just by tinkering with the system for so long, I really learned alot! I almost had my campus interenet privileges revoked because I did so many net installs. After I get a new HD I should be able to go to work again.

I wonder why they would pull your internet rights for something like that. I'm running a full webserver on my net connection and so far haven't heard from any of the IS&T people here...

For some obscure reason, Novell saw fit to send me a copy of both their enterprise and Desktop versions of Suse Linux.

I picked up a couple of old PCs from the office (P2-350, 256 mb ram), and it installed beautifully.

Still going over the setup, but thought you might want to try registering yourself with Novell, just for kicks... ;)

What's Suse like?

I have an old copy of Debian, but never got around to installing it. It's my first Linux package that I've actually installed, so I can't really say.

Otherwise I can say that I was impressed with all of the features that it comes with; it covers everything I ever thought I'd use a server for (mail, host, email, file, fax, database, print, ...). The server version is a set of 4 CDs (2 are used during the initial setup), and the Desktop is 3 disks.

I'll be installing the desktop shortly (maybe within the next couple of days). I can let you know then. I'll try to connect the two boxes and see what happens, if I have time.

wait, there's another way to run a *nix server??? guess i've been too out of the xwindows scene ;)

i personally prefer freebsd. just my personal favorite. but i've run webservers on redhat and freebsd, both have worked well for me. used to run a freebsd counterstrike server, a 550 amd @ 450 (motherboard support :( ), 128 mb ram ran 12 people no problems.

freebsd takes a little more to set up, but it's a beautiful distro. it'll run anything linux will with linux emu running.

No luck over the weekend; too swamped. Retrying next week.

Except, I think, the gaming stuff. I think that ATI and nVidia release Linux drivers but not FreeBSD drivers. Correct me if I'm wrong?

nVidia released linux drivers i'm not entirely sure what ATI thinks they've got...

most likely there are freebsd drivers available. i think there's a port for just about everything in freebsd, if one looks hard enough. of course, it's not _as much_ of an issue with software, with the linux emu, hardware would be different. but i'd imagine it's out there somewhere.

FYI ... Gentoo linux has based some of its concepts on BSD-based distro's (openBSD & freeBSD). So if you want to run linux (for compatibility reasons) with some of the amazing features of BSD (like the portage packake manager) ... Gentoo is just the distro for you ...

good to know. i've thought about trying gentoo, it sounds like a neat os. unfortunately i haven't really had the time to mess around with it. someday when i have some extra hardware and some time, i'll get it running, otherwise freebsd will have to do for now.

hopefully one of these days i'll get around to setting up some new servers around home here. it would be nice to run them in unix instead of windows, perhaps gentoo would be the way to go then.

Well try not to take my last comment too seriously, if you look at my first post in this thread I was running a 333mhz pentium 2.... you would have a pretty big resource advantage running it command line only.

On any modern system you should have absolutely no issues running you computer with an x server, but most server type applications on linux can be run without the need for an x server.

Driver compatibility is an issue. I never looked at Suse that way before. (it's an issue?!?). Won't affect me though, I'm just running a simple server on an old machine.

I got my new HD yesterday and I right back to where I was when the first one died. I'm running kernel 2.6.10, with an xserver and KDE 3.3, now I want to install ndiswrapper so I can get my wireless card working, but I keep getting errors when I try to run make in the ndiswrapper directory.

edit: I can't ssh into it right now to check what the exact error is, but i'll post it later when I can.

I recompiled my kernel with usb support (although i have a pcmcia car) and got the most up to date version of module-init-tools. wireless is working and all is well :)
...FINALLY!!1