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Ok, so I'm going to have a Shuttle SV-24 with a 20GB hard drive, dinky celeron processor, and I want to use it to replace a little utility server I have sitting in the corner. Though I love MS stuff, I'm always open to *nix, or whatever alternatives are out there. Here's basically what I need it to do.

1. File sharing for ghosting hard drive images, and as a file dump (sharing will be with XP-based machines)

2. Limited FTP server (yeah, this should be simple I'd imagine)

3. Limited web server. I hate how Apache lacks a GUI front end. while the web serving will be very limited, I definitely want an easy way to assign permissions/properties to individual local directories. This is dead easy in IIS, but for Apache?

4. VNC

5. Dead easy scripting language so I can write up a hot backup script that just copies files off my main machine daily

Now I'm a lazy bastard. I know I can set up an MS OS to do all of that very easily, almost blindfolded. Can I, a *nix newbie, do all that without spending hours in chat rooms and sifting through HOWTOs? Come to think of it, is the SV-24's hardware widely supported anyway?

1. SAMBA. Read up, it's good for you.

2. Any decent distro has one by default. Config, enable, run.

3. Comanche. Google for it. Most distros include it or have RPMs or DEBs around.

4. Native. Get it where you got the Win32 backport.

5. Perl? CGI? shell scripts? take your pick.

And if you have too much trouble, give up and pay a few hundred bills for Bill to bail you out. Keep costs in mind, but enjoy the trip.

You can't expect to learn something new without doing some reading. That said, I think it wouldn't be too much effort to run the services you need.

Usually, I would recommend FreeBSD over Linux, but FreeBSD isn't likely to support all of the integrated devices on the SV24. It probably is a job for Linux. Just pick you poision, er, distro....

I think I'm going to at least give it a try. Comanche supports not only Apache, but also Samba, which helps out a lot. With that I can easily serve my printer, which is old and rarely used anyway. We'll see how it turns out, I'm downloading Mandrake as I type this. Yeah, I'm lame by *nix standards going with Mandrake, but I'm a MS fanboy

and so it was that young Dissonance (a known Microsoft zealot/apologist) took his first steps into a wider world... a historic day, indeed.

Careful grasshopper, once you get beyond a certain level of competence in *NIX you will undergo a religious conversion and be changed forever. None of your old M$ buddies will understand what has happened to you. There is no going back.

Using a command line again feels terribly masochistic to me.

I couldn't stand that customized Red Hat 5 install that came with the Cobalt RaQ 3 I had to support. Uggh, the bad memories of Google searching for RPM's and documentation are all rushing back.

The later Red Hat 6 install on a CUSL2-M wasn't pretty either. Never could get the RPM for the i815E video adapter to work right. Managed to hang the machine a few times. Now that I think about it, trying to use any virtual desktop in X other than 1 also resulted in a hang. Hence the point of trying to update the driver.

Another fun projects was seeing if we could customize a Linux install for an old 486. Of course you could take a nap between commands on that box. Wanted to customize the kernel and drop off all the dead weight, but it was just too slow to do it in a reasonable manner. Hell, Windows 95 original ran faster on the machine.

There are just some thing that shouldn't be inherently difficult. Linux, the +10 to difficulty OS.

I want to try FreeBSD again, but it's hardware requirements are so terribly narrow. I never could get it to see the FA310TX NIC it says it supports.

FreeBSD positively rocks as a UNIX. I think you would like it, Ryu.

* No more searching for rpms - FreeBSD has the ports collection. It can be updated with CVSUp if you want the newest version of anything.
* It's very easy to update, configure, and build your kernel/system.
* The default ee editor is simple and effective.
* Very logical layout throughout.
* STABLE

You do have to be careful picking hardware. FreeBSD is targeted at the serious server and workstation markets so they don't spend time writing drivers for every PC device out there. It's not hard to build a box fully supported by FreeBSD, but it takes a little planning.