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I want to set up a file server that I can use as a torrent box (for legal torrents) and a file server for both web (serve up my files with password protection) and local shares to share music, videos, game ISOs, etc across my network.
What is the best distro to do this?
Trace
It needs to run on a dual core atom 1.6ghz with HT
I run ubuntu server and FTP all of my files over to it.
Do you want X or are you familiar enough with a CLI to not care?
Personally I like Ubuntu or Debian, depending on the application and intended hardware. Ubuntu will be a little more user-friendly, but honestly the difference is much less with a headless server than it is with a normal desk/lap/etc-top.
Bitch Tech had a how to up on making a home web server, dunno if it has been updated for Ubuntu 10.04 or not though.
I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 on my personal web server and have run OpenSUSE, FreeBSD, FreeNAS and Fedora on different boxes at different times for different purposes. If you don't mind a bit of CLI (or a lot depending on how much you are looking to add to it), you may want to check out TinyCore.
I'd prefer X (GUI) as I'm not that familiar with CLI.
Thanks for the links and thoughts guys. I'll check bitch tech and tinycore out
Interesting. I hadn't seen Tiny Core before; that's be far the smallest distro I've ever seen with a GUI. Nice.
I'm going to try the bitchtech guide, at least now, while I'm starting out with Linux
If you have any questions, hit me up on msn, I'll try to help you screw it up even more!
You might check out FreeNAS. They have updated the WebGUI and added some features as well. Its very light and is designed to boot off of a CD or Flashdrive, so all the HDD's in the box are used for storage.
http://freenas.org/
FreeNAS was going to be my vote also.
For a small distro, I havent seen Tinycore, but Damn Small Linux = 40mb w/gui.
Would FreeNAS allow him to torrent though? I was under the impression that NAS was intended just for storage rather than a more complex server.
Also if you are willing to work with windows, the new version of Microsoft Home Server is in Beta and seems to be pretty stable. Even the retail version of Home Server is less than $100. I only mention this as I've heard it's fairly easy to use for beginners and being based on Windows can run Window's apps if needed.
The Beta is being downloaded now.
My dual core atom sits at the little flashy DOS thing during boot of any installed linux distro. I've tried xubuntu, unbuntu, live from the disc, ubuntu works, but installed fails to boot, and I wasn't able to boot xubuntu or install it
I take that back, I got Ubuntu to boot, and so far is functioning perfectly as I wanted. Much simpler than a Windows machine ever would.
i use windows XP media center edition for my fileserver... and it works beautifully
No doubt that the best distribution is ubuntu linux. Specially for servers