Want to build a *nix-based network file server...

[ebaycj]

Booty-

Your work situation sounds similar to mine. Small business, penny pinching encouraged/demanded at every opportunity. Your boss will NEVER lose this penny pinching attitude. You need to gradually start over-spec'ing everything you buy, and just letting the extra capacity go to waste. Because there will come a time when you will actually have to do something demanding, something that is not penny-pinchable, and you will be forced to penny-pinch it while at the same time making it work (and work well). You will be unable to do it, and you will get fired. I know, this happened to me.

Fvcking penny-pinchers.

ebaycj

EDIT: my rant WAS going somewhere... I would recommend buying expensive software now, to get him used to paying for it. Later, when you need a bigger budget, you can allocate some $$$ from your expensive software to cover your a$$.

 

[Nothinman]

EDIT: my rant WAS going somewhere... I would recommend buying expensive software now, to get him used to paying for it. Later, when you need a bigger budget, you can allocate some $$$ from your expensive software to cover your a$$.

Or you can overspec the hardware and don't spend any money on software licenses, by using OSS, to keep the prices semi-reasonable.

 

[Southerner]

Any Unixy solution running Samba will work acceptably here. If I were you I'd focus on support issues - how much effort is going to be required to keep this thing going and keep it up-to-date with security patches and the like.

After thinking these issues through, I've decided on 2 platforms: FreeBSD, and Debian Linux. On one, updating all applications to the most recent version is accomplished by "portupgrade -ra", at which point it'll churn and compile for a while, leaving all ports up to date. In the other case, it's "apt-get upgrade" and everything (core OS included) is as it needs to me. (FreeBSD needs a make buildworld && make installworld to update the OS itself). Neither is a big deal.

The big plus with Debian is that they have the Stable branch, where all secutiry fixes are backported and the system can be relied upon to stay running. The big down-side is that if you're like most you'll find you aren't running stable for all applications, but instead are running newer versions of key applications. In my case I'm running stable, with a mailer and database from testing, and an antivirus program from unstable. All were a simple "apt-get -t <testing | unstable> install <package-name>" so it's not that big of a deal, but it's a little troublesome.

The advantage of BSD is that the OS is clearly separated from the stuff you install (or at least it should be, though MySQL 4.0.18 from ports ignores my.cnf in /usr/local/etc and looks in /etc instead) and upgrades/installation are as easy as "portinstall packagename", at which point you get the latest and greatest. The down-side is compilation -- to enable SMP on my system I had to copy the GENERIC kernel file and modify two lines, then issue the appropriate "make" commands. On Debian, it's "apt-get install kernel-image-2.24.whatever" then reboot.

Both IMHO are an order of magnitude nicer to maintain than Redhat or Mandrake. In my opinion, of course -- others are bound to disagree.

 

[Nothinman]

The advantage of BSD is that the OS is clearly separated from the stuff you install

And the big disadvantage is that the core OS and kernel are tied together so tightly and the base BSD userland sucks even though it's slowly getting more and more like the GNU userland.

Oh and 'apt-cache search' or using / to search in dselect is a ton faster than 'make search key=blah' in ports.

 

[Southerner]

Oh and 'apt-cache search' or using / to search in dselect is a ton faster than 'make search key=blah' in ports.

Yeah, but it's not faster than "portinstall foo," especially when installing software from a more recent release.

I run Debian SPARC and FreeBSD x86 side-by-side, and don't see any huge advantages to one over the other. You're welcome to disagree, of course.

 

[n0cmonkey]

With IBM and Novell on Linux's side, no one can say it isn't supported anymore.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
With IBM and Novell on Linux's side, no one can say it isn't supported anymore.

Hello IBM support, I'd like some help setting up my Debian file-server...

:roll:

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: spyordie007

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
With IBM and Novell on Linux's side, no one can say it isn't supported anymore.

Hello IBM support, I'd like some help setting up my Debian file-server...

:roll:

Please be realistic. You won't call Microsoft for support with Solaris would you?

EDIT: I just wanted to call attention to the fact that I didn't zealously promote FOSS here. I just pointed out a, now, common mistake when it comes to Linux in the work place.

I'm in a "right tool for the job" mood right now.

 

[Nothinman]

Yeah, but it's not faster than "portinstall foo," especially when installing software from a more recent release.

apt-cache search is tons faster than 'make search key=blah', good thing I said nothing about installing.

And I have yet to need a newer release than is in sid. Sure if you use sid you lose some of the QA that goes into woody and sarge, but if you use FreeBSD you lose the same QA when using ports.

Hello IBM support, I'd like some help setting up my Debian file-server...

That's what HP is for, they support Debian in a number of places and even use it as their internal development platform. I'm not saying they support it across the board, but you have a better chance with them than IBM.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: spyordie007

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
With IBM and Novell on Linux's side, no one can say it isn't supported anymore.

Hello IBM support, I'd like some help setting up my Debian file-server...

:roll:

Hello this is Microsoft technical support, my name is Shannon, how may I help you today?

Well, you see we have these NT servers and some Windows 98 clients that have been acting funny lately...

(I wonder how something like that will end up?)

Anyways if you want professional Debian support There are plenty of choices to choose from

You get what suites you, if you can do it yourself its free. If you like developing relationships with one or two different specialists, then you can do that. If you want big-wig support ala IBM/Redhat/Novell then you can do that too.

Each business needs different needs a one-size-fits-all supportmay work for some people, but needs and budgets vary greatly.

Don't forget that 70% (50% of the income comes from then, too) of business in the US is small business's and most of those people can't afford a lot of nice stuff big corporate people take for granted.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: spyordie007

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
With IBM and Novell on Linux's side, no one can say it isn't supported anymore.

Hello IBM support, I'd like some help setting up my Debian file-server...

:roll:

Please be realistic. You won't call Microsoft for support with Solaris would you?

EDIT: I just wanted to call attention to the fact that I didn't zealously promote FOSS here. I just pointed out a, now, common mistake when it comes to Linux in the work place.

I'm in a "right tool for the job" mood right now.

Okay so I guess my comment was a little on the extreme side. The point I was trying to make was that just because some OEMs are doing some Linux support doesnt mean that you really have full support across the board. Generally each of them is only going to support it in as much as the configurations they suggest or ship with their hardware.

The "argument" for windows in this case is that after you've spoken to the OEMs and still havent gotten the answers that you need there is basically a single point you can go to for support (Microsoft). Whereas with Linux there is no single point of contact.

I dont know about you, but I hate spending my day calling one vendor after the next in order to get something fixed...

 

[drag]

That's what Redhat and Suse/Novell are for, a single point to refer to. If you want it you get it, Debian is for a different target audiance.

 

[addragyn]

36GB file server. A NAS will do what you want with less cost. I mean cost in the biggest sense.

http://www.snapappliance.com/

The hardware works and they have all kinds of cool software to go with it.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,678095,00.asp

Otherwise school yourself on Linux. I've setup small offices on an old desktop that got the disks upgraded and got esmith or clarkconnect slapped onto it. And a user gets a new machine.
For ES and CC they also have consultants all over the place who a licensed to support their products. Linux support from a passionate Linux geek. Win. It's not big and corporate but if you're impressed by letterhead stick with MS.
http://www.e-smith.org/
http://www.clarkconnect.org/

http://www.netmax.com/
Netmax is along the same vein.

For your situation I think it's best to leave DHCP where it is.


It's good you have an open mind about solutions. The all MS or all Intel attitude tends to be rooted in a ignorant fear of the unknown. (See second post in the thread.) Enjoy those open standards!

 

[jhu]

is windows 2k's 10 user limit limited to iis and filesharing? would there be a limit if apache was used?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: spyordie007

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: spyordie007

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
With IBM and Novell on Linux's side, no one can say it isn't supported anymore.

Hello IBM support, I'd like some help setting up my Debian file-server...

:roll:

Please be realistic. You won't call Microsoft for support with Solaris would you?

EDIT: I just wanted to call attention to the fact that I didn't zealously promote FOSS here. I just pointed out a, now, common mistake when it comes to Linux in the work place.

I'm in a "right tool for the job" mood right now.

Okay so I guess my comment was a little on the extreme side. The point I was trying to make was that just because some OEMs are doing some Linux support doesnt mean that you really have full support across the board. Generally each of them is only going to support it in as much as the configurations they suggest or ship with their hardware.

The "argument" for windows in this case is that after you've spoken to the OEMs and still havent gotten the answers that you need there is basically a single point you can go to for support (Microsoft). Whereas with Linux there is no single point of contact.

I dont know about you, but I hate spending my day calling one vendor after the next in order to get something fixed...

If you buy RHEL, go to Red Hat. If you buy SuSE, go to SuSE. You might not find commercial support for every distro out there, but if you need it, you plan around it.

 

[spyordie007]

Originally posted by: jhu
is windows 2k's 10 user limit limited to iis and filesharing? would there be a limit if apache was used?

nope

 

[Panther505]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Yeah, but it's not faster than "portinstall foo," especially when installing software from a more recent release.

apt-cache search is tons faster than 'make search key=blah', good thing I said nothing about installing.

And I have yet to need a newer release than is in sid. Sure if you use sid you lose some of the QA that goes into woody and sarge, but if you use FreeBSD you lose the same QA when using ports.

Hello IBM support, I'd like some help setting up my Debian file-server...

That's what HP is for, they support Debian in a number of places and even use it as their internal development platform. I'm not saying they support it across the board, but you have a better chance with them than IBM.

You can/could get Debian support from IBM the same way that you can from HP. You have to have a support contract with IGS, or you have to have bought the servers in that config with Debian on them from IBM. Seen 'em, tested 'em and unfortunately supported 'em.


Panther

 

[horhey]

Originally posted by: addragyn
36GB file server. A NAS will do what you want with less cost. I mean cost in the biggest sense.

http://www.snapappliance.com/

The hardware works and they have all kinds of cool software to go with it.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,678095,00.asp

I use the Snap Server 1100 at work for as a file server for 60 users for basically word docs, etc.. this little box is easy to set up and intergrates with AD. Worth a closer look.

Horhey