setting up a server

[sonoma1993]

how would i go about setting up a server for my home netwoking? i have two computers in my room, 1 in my brother room, 1 in the kitchen and my sister laptop. currently i have the computers connected to a microsoft wireless routher, the 2 computers in my room and my bro room are hard wire and the other 2 are wireless. i thought about downloading the windows xp 64 bit server edition.. the 2 computers in my room are running amd64 processors

 

[skyking]

as far as the networking side of this, do use a wired port if possible. That much less to worry about.
For the rest, I'd take it to The Operating Systems forum.
I would also ask what you want this server to do?
<mini-rant>
If it is a fileserver, one of the 'nix distros or debian or linux without a GUI will run fine on pentium 200, with 64 Mb of ram.
Just hang the big hard drive on an ata 100 controller card. No need wasting all that computer power to just serve up files or webpages.
</mini-rant>

 

[sonoma1993]

what types of servers are there? the router and the cable modem are in my room. they would be hard wired.

 

[skyking]

file, webserver, mailserver, database, application, DNS, shell server......
Many more, but those are the main types off the top of my head.

 

[dashiki]

running a server just to run a server can get a little hairy. I would evaluate what you goal for this server is and do you really need to have one in teh first place.

I would not use the rc of win64 as you most likely are not running any 64-bit applications that would require it and if you are only running a file server any windows 2000 or later versions (excluding release candidates) would be fine. If you are just interested in how a server works and want to really learn how to use one find a linux distro and play around with that. Any shmuck can setup a windows based server they practically run out of the box.

As for your next question of "Which Linux Distro do you recomend?" Ubuntu is the latest one I installed it's a nice distro also all the big ones would be fine but for a first time install I would recommend Mandrake it's easy to install and when you get used to that you can upgrade to a more difficult ditro.

 

[freebsdrules]

I just upgraded my file server to dual xeon 2.66GHz processors, 1GB PC2700 ECC RAM, 74GB Raptor for OS (FreeBSD) & 2x 300GB Maxtor SATA 16mb cache in raid 0 array all sitting in a nice chenbro 2U chassis (8 hotswap SATA bays ). I personally started out building a file server for our house using an old p3 machine and FreeBSD; I would personally suggest some sort of unix-based operating system as they serve extremely well as servers, are free and are good practice/experience. I've since moved on to a rack in the house with lots of fun toys.

 

[bhanson]

Raid 0 for a server, eww...

 

[dphantom]

Originally posted by: freebsdrules
I just upgraded my file server to dual xeon 2.66GHz processors, 1GB PC2700 ECC RAM, 74GB Raptor for OS (FreeBSD) & 2x 300GB Maxtor SATA 16mb cache in raid 0 array all sitting in a nice chenbro 2U chassis (8 hotswap SATA bays ). I personally started out building a file server for our house using an old p3 machine and FreeBSD; I would personally suggest some sort of unix-based operating system as they serve extremely well as servers, are free and are good practice/experience. I've since moved on to a rack in the house with lots of fun toys.

Raid 0??? Thank goodness its a home server.:Q

 

[freebsdrules]

The performance of raid 0 is great and with regular backup, nothing really to worry about. I might move to a raid 5 array at some point but I've heard mixed things about it and I definately don't have the funds for a raid 10 array. Right now, backing up to external drive(s) regularily works just fine.