Suggest a fileserver distro
Moderator: Thanas
Suggest a fileserver distro
It's that time again - time to reinstall my fileserver! It's an old P2...er.. 266 or something ... and it boots off SCSI and runs a PCI RAID card. I installed FC4 on it some time ago, under the impression I might use it for something, but I never do. So I'm looking for a new, secure, relatively lightweight distro for all my file-serving needs.
Straight Debian, also pretty lightweight.
Don't like the idea of slackware's lack of a decent package manager / dependency tracking.
Aptitude (or lack thereof) in Fedora is what keeps me away from it.
Don't like the idea of slackware's lack of a decent package manager / dependency tracking.
Aptitude (or lack thereof) in Fedora is what keeps me away from it.
ah.....the path to happiness is revision of dreams and not fulfillment... -SWPIGWANG
Sufficient Googling is indistinguishable from knowledge -somebody
Anything worth the cost of a missile, which can be located on the battlefield, will be shot at with missiles. If the US military is involved, then things, which are not worth the cost if a missile will also be shot at with missiles. -Sea Skimmer
George Bush makes freedom sound like a giant robot that breaks down a lot. -Darth Raptor
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Darth Wong
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Yikes, a 266MHz machine? You'd obviously want one of the lightweight distros. I don't have much experience running lean. My slowest machine is a 1GHz box with 1GB of RAM.
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Mike/RantMode/Blurbs.html
I use slackware on my old fileserver, lean and mean and doesn't connect directly to the internet (blocked in my router too)
My new fileserver has more file storage, is faster, smaller and takes less juice. It's runs some lightweight stripped down version of linux (appliance) and is very good at what it does (serves files).
My new fileserver has more file storage, is faster, smaller and takes less juice. It's runs some lightweight stripped down version of linux (appliance) and is very good at what it does (serves files).
May you live in interesting times.
An NSLU2? A lot of those devices have custom firmware (http://www.nslu2-linux.org/) so they can be put to other uses as well.Lisa wrote:I use slackware on my old fileserver, lean and mean and doesn't connect directly to the internet (blocked in my router too)
My new fileserver has more file storage, is faster, smaller and takes less juice. It's runs some lightweight stripped down version of linux (appliance) and is very good at what it does (serves files).
The reason why I haven't gotten one is I like my current fileserver's ability to run Azureus, GTK-gnutella, and various other p2p apps in the background so I can forget about it until downloads are done- other bittorrent clients don't have the amount of features. I can use VNC to find torrents and whatnot on the same machine. These won't run on an embedded device.
ah.....the path to happiness is revision of dreams and not fulfillment... -SWPIGWANG
Sufficient Googling is indistinguishable from knowledge -somebody
Anything worth the cost of a missile, which can be located on the battlefield, will be shot at with missiles. If the US military is involved, then things, which are not worth the cost if a missile will also be shot at with missiles. -Sea Skimmer
George Bush makes freedom sound like a giant robot that breaks down a lot. -Darth Raptor
Don't bother with a GUI in that case: you should be able to manage it via the command line (remotely also, via SSH). It may take a bit of learning, but it won't casuse any functional problems.Stark wrote:Yeah, I'm running Fedora Core 4 on it at the moment, and simply moving the mouse maxes out the CPU. I initially thought I'd do much more with the machine, but it's ended up being a dumb server box, so I don't need all the extra load.
Leaner GUIs may work but may take some setup.
ah.....the path to happiness is revision of dreams and not fulfillment... -SWPIGWANG
Sufficient Googling is indistinguishable from knowledge -somebody
Anything worth the cost of a missile, which can be located on the battlefield, will be shot at with missiles. If the US military is involved, then things, which are not worth the cost if a missile will also be shot at with missiles. -Sea Skimmer
George Bush makes freedom sound like a giant robot that breaks down a lot. -Darth Raptor
I'm partial to my free MsdnAA copy of Windows 2003 Server Enterprise edition 
oh, I cant actually get Standard edition of Win2k3, it just comes in Enterprise flavour from my uni's MsdnAA program
oh, I cant actually get Standard edition of Win2k3, it just comes in Enterprise flavour from my uni's MsdnAA program
"Okay, I'll have the truth with a side order of clarity." ~ Dr. Daniel Jackson.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." ~ Stephen Colbert
"One Drive, One Partition, the One True Path" ~ ars technica forums - warrens - on hhd partitioning schemes.
Yeah, that's how I manage it now. I just figured back in the day I'd use xwindows for something, like uni or whatever. I never did though.Pezzoni wrote:Don't bother with a GUI in that case: you should be able to manage it via the command line (remotely also, via SSH). It may take a bit of learning, but it won't casuse any functional problems.
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Alferd Packer
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Debian's bare-bones install is just over 300MB, I believe. I would recommend that or Ubuntu's server installation.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation." -Herbert Spencer
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.
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Darth Wong
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The best way to use a GUI on a fileserver is to SSH into it and then run the GUI programs on a remote terminal. I mostly use GUI tools to manage my fileserver, but they display on one of my other machines. The fileserver itself doesn't run an X-server, but I'm not keen on restricting myself to command-line tools if I don't have to.
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Mike/RantMode/Blurbs.html
I prefer VNC since I don't have to remain connected for apps to continue running in the background.
ah.....the path to happiness is revision of dreams and not fulfillment... -SWPIGWANG
Sufficient Googling is indistinguishable from knowledge -somebody
Anything worth the cost of a missile, which can be located on the battlefield, will be shot at with missiles. If the US military is involved, then things, which are not worth the cost if a missile will also be shot at with missiles. -Sea Skimmer
George Bush makes freedom sound like a giant robot that breaks down a lot. -Darth Raptor