Help setting up a home server.....

[Agrooreo]

Hi guys, topic pretty much says it all. I'm interested in setting up a server out of some parts I have laying around. I currently have a 1.2 ghz cpu, matching motherboard with onboard vid and sound, etc, and about 256 mg ram (i think will have to check on that, either way im pretty sure the ram is either pc100 or pc133 so upgrading to more shouldn't be hard.) and a 320 gb eide hdd sitting in a mid atx case.

Now what i want the server to be able to do is stream media to 2 xboxs w/ xbmc, my xbox 360, my laptop, and my dell gx260. I would also like it to be able to download from the internet so i dont have to transfer a bunch of stuff. Secure remote access is also a must. Also would love it to be able to run without a monitor, keyboard, etc. Ftp is also a must. This is where I run into issues. I don't know much about the technical side of setting up a server since this will be my first time. I did however find this Link to article on building a server using Xubuntu. Seems pretty straightforward and easy to follow if I put the time in. However since the article is a little over a yr and a half old I would like some other suggestions on what OS to use. Keep in mind I need something that is pretty much a step by step how to since I am new to servers, linux, and windows server operating systems.


Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help!

 

[Chapbass]

im sure youll get suggestions for linux distros, as with a machine of that spec youll probably want ot use that.


at the same time, windows home server is absolutely awesome...youll probably need a bit more ram for it, but it should have all of the things you need.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Agrooreo
Hi guys, topic pretty much says it all. I'm interested in setting up a server out of some parts I have laying around. I currently have a 1.2 ghz cpu, matching motherboard with onboard vid and sound, etc, and about 256 mg ram (i think will have to check on that, either way im pretty sure the ram is either pc100 or pc133 so upgrading to more shouldn't be hard.) and a 320 gb eide hdd sitting in a mid atx case.

Now what i want the server to be able to do is stream media to 2 xboxs w/ xbmc, my xbox 360, my laptop, and my dell gx260. I would also like it to be able to download from the internet so i dont have to transfer a bunch of stuff. Secure remote access is also a must. Also would love it to be able to run without a monitor, keyboard, etc. Ftp is also a must. This is where I run into issues. I don't know much about the technical side of setting up a server since this will be my first time. I did however find this Link to article on building a server using Xubuntu. Seems pretty straightforward and easy to follow if I put the time in. However since the article is a little over a yr and a half old I would like some other suggestions on what OS to use. Keep in mind I need something that is pretty much a step by step how to since I am new to servers, linux, and windows server operating systems.


Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks for the help!

Just buy a Windows Home Server and be done with it. Either $99 (for the OS) plus about $20 for RAM and your current setup would work, or spend $450-ish and buy a new one from HP. (ex470, ex475, ex480, ex485...)

The WHS will be able to easily do all that you mention above, plus you'll be able to support it and get it working correctly with a minimum of hassle.

If you aren't familiar with the tech side of things, stay away from Linux. WHS will automate enough such that it's by far the simplest solution.

Remote Desktop (mstsc.exe) will allow you to go to that machine, so it doesn't need mice, keyboards, video - anything, really. The HP WHS box doesn't even have video.

If you have other questions just ask.

 

[Agrooreo]

Hmm. I may have to download the trial of whs to check it out and see if its worth the 99$. Would love to try linux, but like I said I dont know much about it and the only step by step guide I can find is over a yr and a half old so not sure how relevant it still is. Any other suggestions will be grately appreciated while i try to figure out if I can try out whs in a virtual box. Thanks again.

 

[dclive]

WHS works perfectly in VMware ESX(i) and Server (and the other flavors of VMware) - it's a breeze to virtualize. High recommended.

 

[RebateMonger]

One other thing that you didn't mention, but might be important to you, is backups. WHS fully automates full image backups of all your PCs. Once you try this, you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. It does them every night without any input needed from you.

Restores of either individual files or of entire drives is a breeze with WHS. Also, WHS doesn't duplicate files that are on muliple PCs, so the backups are normally significantly smaller for additional PCs. So that backups are really space-efficient.

 

[Agrooreo]

I hadn't really thought about backups, lol. Guess that goes to show I dont really know much about servers but yeah that would be important. Thanks for the suggestion. I thought I would be able to try out whs in the parralels workstations I got free the other day but everytime I try and run it I get the famous BSOD. So Im not trying that anymore.

 

[dclive]

A new one is 450 ish and cheap for what you get.