Best/Simplest Distro For Home File/Print/FTP Server? 1

[kjv1611]

To start off, to date, I have only stored everything on my "main" computer at home. But I have found that it would be really best if I setup a separate box with older hardware for storing all of my files - home pictures and videos, documents I want to keep for various purposes, and also church audio files - I keep audio files for our church backed up at home, as well as at our church.

Most recently, I kept it all in a RAID 3 configuration using a PNY S-CURE card. That was all in my "main" computer.

Now, after a hardware updgrade for myself, and doing some other computer upgrades for others, I have some older hardware just sitting there begging to be used. So, I took that hardware, and have built my new home-made NAS or file server - no OS installed yet.

Here is the hardware:
Old AMD K62 500MHz processor and associated Mini-ATX motherboard - no AGP, no onboard LAN, USB 1.1. It does have onboard video. I think the chipset and all is VIA based if I remember correctly. And it has 3 DIMMS with a total of 512MB PC100 or PC133 SDRAM installed - I forget which.

I do not want to go out and buy Windows Server 2003, so I'm thinking of using a Linux Distro to setup a file server.

My linux experience:
I've used one copy of Red Hat, and I've used Ubuntu 6. I have Ubuntu 7 - Feisty Fawn burned to a CD, and I have a few old linux distros, as well as one that's probably 2 years old all sitting around. I have used both Red Hat and Ubuntu just to tinker around some. I did once use Ubuntu (live CD) to recover files from my personal laptop when Windows had crashed - I had to do a couple of different things to enable Ubuntu to copy files out of the Windows partition, and then transfer over the home network.

I have done a wee bit of work within the Console in Ubuntu, but that experience is very limited. I'm sure I can follow directions to run it, but I'd rather just stick with the GUI for now for the purpose of the file server if possible - but if convinced otherwise, I'm sure it won't be too much trouble to just do console commands.

Currently, this is what I want to do, in this order of priority (1 being highest priority):
[ol][li]File Server/NAS for sharing files at home[/li]
[li]Print server to share printers at home[/li]
[li]ftp server to be able to access the files remotely - and allow maybe at most 2 or 3 other people to access files via the same method.[/li]
[li]web server to allow for some to be able to read certain files, but not be able to have write access. This one may not really be something I want to do, to ensure no problems with my local ISP - Cable Broadband.[/li][/ol]

I've seen so many different articles, forum postings, and all in various locations from Google searches that it seems overwhelming to know what would be the best.

Here is what I am looking for in a distro if possible, as far as what I want to actually do with it:
[ol][li]Be able to run with very little involvement/input from me - I'm thinking of just sticking it in a nearby closet, away from everything else, and connect via CAT5 - but, I may have it a little closer, if I do the print server.[/li]
[li]Because I want to put it away more or less, I want to be able to control it remotely from any of my home computers if possible - basically any machine on the local network side - not WAN side.[/li]
[li]Be able to easily setup the network shares from within Windows on other machines.[/li][/ol]

Also, by the time I make another attempt at this, I'll have a total of 6 hard drives in the machine - one older 15 gig PATA hard drive for the system, and 5 WD 500GB hard drives in a RAID 3 configuration on the PNY S-CURE card.

Any thoughts/opinions/information greatly appreciated.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[kjv1611]

Well, I tried Mandriva last night - haven't seen how it is doing after the install, b/c it was installing updates at the end when I left this morning - I didn't get to finish last night, and just left it sitting.

But the whole experience was awe-inspiring in my opinion. It was a simple, pretty, easy to use interface the whole way through setup. I mean, it had explanations of things, AND I could even use my mouse if I so chose!

The partitioning tool, IMO, was incredible. It automatically recognized my BIOS RAID for the RAID 1 I was wanting to use for the system, and seemed to have no issues so far.

Of course, we'll see if it really had no issues upon the first reboot - that is when Ubuntu 7.04 would die on me - the first reboot (when I used the BIOS RAID).

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[kjv1611]

So far with Mandriva, I have found that the default partitioning tool seems to be limited to 1TB per mounted device that it can support. So I picked some different applications last night, and left the downloader/installer running on getting those installed. But bad news is that when I checked this morning, many of them did not complete for whatever reason - my whole Internet connection has been lousy for the pasty couple days, it seems - maybe somethings wrong with my router.

Anyway, I am really liking Mandriva with it's support and all, as well as the simple and easy to use interface. I've found a fair amount of help over at at least one of the Mandriva forums, as well.

I thought Mandriva was what had the limit, but I was told that is probably not the case, but rather it's just the partitioning program (Disk Drake) that is installed. So I am going to try gparted, then maybe something else, to see if I can get the whole 2TB RAID 3 array recognized.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me

 

[kjv1611]

Just as an update/FYI.

(The main issue may not actually be with Linux, but I don't have the time to do enough to fully diagnose the issues).

I am going to end up just giving up on Linux altogether for now. I am trying out Windows Home Server to see how it does for me. I've read some very excellent reviews. And if I don't like that, I'll just go with Windows XP Home or something just to have a running system for now.

What I plan on doing - if I can get the time - is to just run a virtual machine of Linux (a few different distros, or at least just Mandriva, since that was what I was using at the latest), and/or building one extra computer from parts laying around just to have one for testing in the Linux stuff to better understand it before I go and depend on it.

A lot of people give MS a lot of slack for their software, but there is one thing you don't appreciate until you try something else: for the most part, MS software just works. There's a reason they charge so much for it, and people pay for it: because it just works.

--

"If to err is human, then I must be some kind of human!" -Me