Setting up a Backup PC to hold files

[Slowlearner]

At work, I back up engineering data files to a regular PC running Win2K, late at night using a folder replication program. As I have to keep adding more and larger HDs every two years, I am planning to build or reuse an older PC to better serve its purpose. However, I would like to move to Linux to keep costs down, but I know very little about it, and all PCs in our shop are Windows machines.

While I am very familiar with the Windows family and hardware in general, I would like to have a couple more PCs which are basically repositories where old job data is kept and updated but are not accessed frequently or by many users concurrently. Loss of this data would not be catastrophic. I am planning to use reasonably capable but nevertheless old PCs with newer HDs, so support for large HDs is essential.

Novell had sent a pack of DVDs for evaluation that had

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9
SUSE Linux Professional 9.1

and bunch of other stuff.

Can I use just SUSE 9.1 for simple file serving, without # of user restrictions, or do I have to a "server" version. The web sites I am looking at, dont seem to make it very clear

My first Linux server http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/webmaster/article.php/3362001

Build your own Linux server
http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/desktops/0,39023850,39152681,00.htm

Links to any other guides and how-tos would be welcome.

 

[Nothinman]

AFAIK no daemons on Linux have any license restrictions in the manner that you're speaking, it's possible that Novell added something but I highly doubt it.

 

[silverpig]

You shouldn't have any problems with licensing restrictions. I don't think there are any unless you found some piece of proprietary software. SuSE would work fine. Perhaps just set up your server using the GUI and then kill it to free up a bit more ram once everything's going nicely.