Building Linux Home Server - Advice please!?

[taltos1]

I am looking for some advice on building my first Linux Server. I have an old P4 system that I am going to use. My first question is, is there any hardware restrictions that I should keep in mind...?

I have done a lot of research, and it seems the more I do the more options I find. So here is my situation:

Setup
-3 x PC's (2 Running XP, 1 Vista)
-1 wireless laptop
-Xbox 360
-Xbox (with XBMC)
-PS3
-2 Printers
-Wireless Router

I would like
A free Linux distro that is stable, can provide file/media sharing, a print server, remote access, and automated file backup. Plus, as an optional feature, a setup that can run headless.

I want all the game systems and the computers to be able to easily access the server.

I am a beginner to linux, so ideally I would like a good community/forum so I can learn.

So far...
I have read about Ubuntu server, Debian, CentOS, Mandriva, FreeBSD... and the list goes on and on. I and really quite lost as to how to proceed. It seems some are designed for servers, others for computers.

Any help would be really great.

Thank you

 

[ViRGE]

For what it's worth, I'd vote for throwing down the cash for Windows Home Server. Most of that list Linux does as well as Windows, but WHS blows everything else away with backup features, and printer sharing is a bit easier since you don't have to start involving CUPS. Your setup is basically a textbook case for WHS.

 

[taltos1]

Thank you for your comments. True. I have read about that also. But I think WHS is overprices at ~$150 and would like to learn linux... Any advice on the linux front?

 

[Jimmah]

I'm in the same boat right now, rebuilding an old plywood server I made years ago for linux/apache/mySQL/Php (LAMP lab ).

I did a wack of reading and picked Linux Mint. Nice little program, hoping to get into it tonight once I finish fixing this ghetto comp.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Any distribution would suit you.

I mostly use Slackware myself, but I've got Ubuntu running on my HTPC and I'm very fond of OpenBSD.
If you want something easy to learn with a huge community, Ubuntu comes to mind.
If you want the absolute best in stability and security, OpenBSD is comes to mind.

 

[nerp]

I personally wouldn't want my backups and data stored on a system with an OS I'm "learning."

Too much room for error/data loss.