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| Thread ID: 88195 | 2008-03-18 19:51:00 | OS For Ancient Server | stormdragon (6013) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 650491 | 2008-03-18 19:51:00 | I've got an old server which was given to me to pull apart. Have since got it working. Was wondering what to install on it, hoping to convert to a simple file server if possible. Specs: Intel PII 400MHz 384MB SDRAM Either SCSI RAID or IDE RAID |
stormdragon (6013) | ||
| 650492 | 2008-03-18 20:07:00 | Definitely a Linux distro . . . . . . as to which one???? Bletch/Myth/Kjaada may be able to suggest the best one We re-deployed an old SCO server here with RedHat ES3 that's a similar vintage to use as a Data Warehouse box, and it's fine . |
nofam (9009) | ||
| 650493 | 2008-03-18 22:58:00 | I would definately put a linux distro on there. As to what distro..? depends on whether you've had any experience with linux, whether you want a nice point 'n click gui to set it up with, or whether you're happy to use/learn to use the command line etc..etc. |
Sherman (9181) | ||
| 650494 | 2008-03-18 23:30:00 | As a fileserver, there's no point putting a GUI on it - it's unnecessary and will simply consume valuable resources. The more ram you can leave free for disk cache, the better it will perform. As for distros - I recommend Debian Stable (aka Etch). Grab the netinstall disk image from here (cdimage.debian.org), and burn it to a CD. Boot from the CD, type 'expertgui', and hit enter. This will start the expert installer in GUI mode. Note that you should be connected to a network with broadband internet access for this. You can ignore most of the settings (defaults are generally fine), but there are a few things worth tweaking: Software RAID can be set up at the disk partitioning stage. Change the filesystem type from ext3 to reiserfs. It's waaay faster. Enable the 'noatime' mount option on whichever filesystem you are using for your data. When you get to the package selection step, untick *every* option, unless you want to end up with a big bunch of packages you don't want or need. If you really must use a pre-selected range of packages, choose *only* 'fileserver' - everything else should be deselected, even 'base system'. If you get the option for GRUB 2, avoid it - you want the standard, normal, GRUB 1. If you want to put a webserver on this, use lighttpd rather than apache unless you really need the extra features - lighttpd is a lot more efficient on ram. If you need any more help, feel free to post back with more questions. Another option if you have no Linux experience is SME Server (http://www.smeserver.org/). Personally I hate it, but it does do an OK job as a fileserver with a nice browser-based GUI for configuring it. It's not the most resource-efficient system, but it will work on your hardware. SME Server is based on CentOS (free version of RHEL). |
Erayd (23) | ||
| 650495 | 2008-03-19 01:34:00 | I go with the above BUT: Free BSD is the server OS preferred by those who know but it is "different". If you have no linux experiance and will be on a learning curve anyway it would be a good way to go. |
kjaada (253) | ||
| 650496 | 2008-03-19 01:37:00 | I go with the above BUT: Free BSD is the server OS preferred by those who know but it is "different". If you have no linux experiance and will be on a learning curve anyway it would be a good way to go.Depends what you're after. If you want it as a firewall or router, certainly - the BSD packet filter & TCP stack is considerably faster. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's a damn good system. There are also a lot of good security enhancements that you don't get out-of-the-box with most Linux distros. |
Erayd (23) | ||
| 650497 | 2008-03-19 05:13:00 | Thanks guys for the ideas will have a quick read up on the distro's later and let you know which way I'll go. Don't care if its a GUI or text based interface, I'm doing a whole lot is DOS at the moment anyway. Doesn't need to be a router or have a firewall although if it doesn't require much extra resources the firewall may be a plus. |
stormdragon (6013) | ||
| 650498 | 2008-03-19 06:54:00 | Don't care if its a GUI or text based interface, I'm doing a whole lot is DOS at the moment anyway.Both Linux and *BSD are very, very different to DOS. Don't expect your DOS expertise to transfer easily. Both Linux and *BSD have very, very good kernel-level firewalls. | Erayd (23) | ||
| 650499 | 2008-03-19 06:58:00 | Both Linux and *BSD are very, very different to DOS. Don't expect your DOS expertise to transfer easily. Both Linux and *BSD have very, very good kernel-level firewalls. Wasn't meaning in the way of command structure just that I'm used to doing things in a command line environment without a GUI so it wouldn't be a problem if one wasn't installed. |
stormdragon (6013) | ||
| 650500 | 2008-03-19 10:01:00 | Wasn't meaning in the way of command structure just that I'm used to doing things in a command line environment without a GUI so it wouldn't be a problem if one wasn't installed. Have a look at FreeNAS ( Lots of fruit, but only ~35MB. Samba/CIFS," target="_blank">www.freenas.org/), a FreeBSD-based network storage-centric distro. Lots of fruit, but only ~35MB. Samba ftp, rsync, Unison etc etc with a user-friendly PHP-based config interface. |
vinref (6194) | ||
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