Linxu Server Help

[Aeryn]

Note: Moderators feel free to move this topic if it is not in the right forum.

I am planning on loading a linux server distribution on to an old server that a friend has. I don't have the specs yet but I will post them as soon as I have them. What distributions do you reccomend for this purpose? Also, I havn't handled a full linux server distribution, are there any online reading materials that you can recommend for me to brush up on? Thanks in advance for your help.

[bailey]

there is several you can chose from, red hat is now charging for it so you might want to look at some of the other ones.

just google linux and you will find a world of information you can down load.

[w00t]

the one my friends and i run uses RedHat 9. Try Debian or Fydora... I don't know if Fydora is a seperate OS or just a version of Linux...

[TheJackal]

I do believe that Fedora is the free version of Red Hat Linux.

[bigandy]

Yes, Fedora is the free version of RH.

Check out LinuxISO (http://linuxiso.org/) and the forums there. There you can get a ton of info, and they also have specialized forums for the individual distros.

And as bailey suggested, Google is a great resource as well.

[Karnevil9]

From reading about Linux it seems the best choice for use as a server would be Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, or FreeBSD, which is a Unix system. The opinions are these seem to be the more stable of all the systems, which is a must for servers. But since Linux was designed to be more of a server than a desktop it would seem that any system would do.

[mairving]

It really depends upon the type of server that you plan on running. FreeBSD is probably the best choice now with RH changing for a webserver. They also have one of the best program installers using ports/packages. Debian is very stable and also easy to update but a little slow on adding new features. Slack is the most Unix like distro and very stable but also a little slow to adopt new technology. Also a bit harder to install. For instance, with Slack when you install it on a SCSI HD, you have to tell it that you have a SCSI drive. Gentoo is great and getting better all of the time. RedHat and SUSE have the best overall driver/software support.

[Aeryn]

I also need the server to be able to network with a Novel Netware 6 network and beable to access drives and file shares of that network as well as provide services to that network.

[Floppyman]

Originally posted by mairving
It really depends upon the type of server that you plan on running. FreeBSD is probably the best choice now with RH changing for a webserver. They also have one of the best program installers using ports/packages. Debian is very stable and also easy to update but a little slow on adding new features. Slack is the most Unix like distro and very stable but also a little slow to adopt new technology. Also a bit harder to install. For instance, with Slack when you install it on a SCSI HD, you have to tell it that you have a SCSI drive. Gentoo is great and getting better all of the time. RedHat and SUSE have the best overall driver/software support.

Well, the support for SCSI is generally there though when you boot slack with the SCSI kernel when you first install it (and your controller is supported). Maybe this is what you meant:).

[mairving]

Originally posted by Floppyman
Well, the support for SCSI is generally there though when you boot slack with the SCSI kernel when you first install it (and your controller is supported). Maybe this is what you meant:). The support is there but by default it lets you decide which image to boot. If you choose the default bare.i by pressing enter, and you have SCSI drives, then it will tell you that there aren't any drives found. You have to tell it adaptec.i or other.