Web/media server combo

[mogli]

There is probably a very simple answer, but I am not familiar with servers at all.

I am planning on putting together a machine to store all my media (audio, video, pictures, mythtv recordings, ripped dvds), here are the planned parts:

Motherboard: Intel BOXDG965WHMKR LGA 775 Intel G965 Express ATX Intel

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 1.8GHz 800MHz FSB 2MB Cache LGA775

Memory: 2GB (2 x 1GB), 240-Pin, DDR2 SDRAM, DDR2 667, (PC2 5300), Dual Channel

Hard Drive (x4): Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5000YS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

Computer Case: Antec Performance One P180 Silver cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower

Power Supply: SeaSonic S12-330 ATX12V 330W

TV card: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150

I am planning on keeping this in my living room, so needed it to be quiet.

Couple of questions:

--I also wanted this to be a webserver for my site, good idea? will it be possible to put it all in one system, I read that webservers run well on FreeBSD but I need a linux install to run Mythtv with full functionality can I run both on the same system, should I run FreeBSD on another computer and just access the media server for files? or should I just use a linux install for the webserver purpose?

--Any suggestion for best linux flavor?

--Any comments on the setup?

--What do you suggest are the best media managers for organizing and categorizing the audio video and pictures? (itunes? iphoto? and Mythtv?),

any suggestions would be helpful, thank you very much, in advance

 

[Kappo]

I personally wouldn't run my external webserver from my media box, but you most certainly can do that. It would run perfectly fine on Linux (apache) so if you feel you would like to combine them, then just stick with Linux.

If you are keeping them separate, then either another Linux box or FreeBSD would work perfectly fine.

 

[Brazen]

I'm a fan of one service per one server, so one server for MythTV, one server for Apache, one server for Samba (if you want that), etc. I accomplish this at home using VMWare Server and creating virtual machines for each server. As for a distro, I use Debian wherever I can. I've also used Ubuntu and I used to be a diehard Redhat fan, but I am more than happy I finally switched to Debian. The nice thing about Ubuntu though, is it has a HUGE community around it, and some nice-to-use forums (ubuntuforums.org).

MythTV is a hog though, and you probably won't be able to use it in a virtual machine. I would put it on it's own server though, if you are planning on getting some good use out of it - if you get a hankerin' to toy around with some web application and fubar your Apache server, you don't want that to also mean you fubar'ed your MythTV server and are going to miss your Sex and The City reruns on top of everything else

Oh, and as for the setup, it sounds like you are plenty beefy for MythTV and you could probably add in a second, or even third, tv tuner card and do multiple recordings at the same time. For a webserver though, you don't need much. I'll give my home server as an example: 500 mhz Celeron, 512 MB RAM, split up with three virtual machines: a Samba server, an Apache server, and a MySQL server, and it all runs just fine.