Small server OS choice

[gameman733]

This is probebly going to start a flame war, but here goes nothing. Ive got a computer setup so that i can use it as a small server. Specs: athlon 1.4 ghz, 128MB of PC133 ram, K7S5A mobo.

Eventually, Im going to want eggdrop, a small http server (for CGI:: Proxy), remote desktop (or ssh in the case of linux), and maybe a small LAN file server. Because of the RAM limitation, the choice is either win 2k, or linux. I want your input on any problems you might see ( i know 128 is small, but its what i have ATM), and any suggestions.

[CD]

CentOS 4.0 if you want stability.. Gentoo or Fedora if you want more of a bleeding edge distro with a lower life cycle.

Windrops suck, so forget win2k

[FLaRe85]

Windrops are just fine. They're nearly identical to eggdrops. I ran a few for years without issue. Samba sucks **** for file-sharing (at least on Fedora), so you're going to feel the pain if you do anything larger than a "small" LAN file server.

I really don't see why it matters which OS you choose. It doesn't sound like you're doing anything mission critical. So, both will perform adequately for your needs. Just go with whatever you're comfortable with (or want an incentive to learn more about).

[sims]

www.damnsmalllinux.org Linux distro with complete office productivity and web applications. Small Enough to fit into a 64mb usb memory drive. Can even be installed within windows.

[KillerShots]

If you want rock-solid stability and security, try FreeBSD (I think their most stable supported version atm is 5.4), but bear in mind you're going to have to work a LOT harder to get it working than you would for, say, Gentoo (I run both - Gentoo for desktop/laptop from stage-1 installs, and FreeBSD 4.10 for my server... which has been running without a reboot since February '04 with frequent updates).

For linux distros, go with Debian or Slackware if you want something relatively easy to configure... or if you are linux-savvy you could try and tackle Gentoo (attempting to do so if you're not is an exercise in futility). Any of those either have packages for what you're looking for or can compile all those packages no problem.

If you want a graphical desktop over your network (you don't need a monitor), install tight-vnc... though I recommend you don't allow it to accept connections from the internet. What you see if you had a monitor and a graphical desktop is what you get on the other side, with whatever OS you use (even Windoze).

As for Samba, I haven't seen what Flare was describing... I've used it on Mandrake (older versions) and more recently on FreeBSD and Gentoo. I've also used it to automatically install the correct printer drivers on every windoze machine connected to my network (no configuration on the clients - it just shows up).

I've never used eggdrop... I've always been an Apache2 guy, and 64M was more than enough memory to handle that.

<OT>Heck, my original webserver was on an old P-200 with 64M EDO RAM running Mandrake 9 and using software RAID-5 across 7 slow and ancient SCSI hard drives (1G each to make 6G space). It was a very poor choice of distros and it took several days to install (menu problems and just general inefficient code on both Mandrake and Fedora's part), but once installed everything worked fine (and sped up 10000% from the install, too). That box was an Apache2 webserver (with .cgi support - in fact its main purpose), ssh server, vnc server, and last but not least a small print/file server (all critical files went there for the RAID protection).</OT>

[scottlc]

Originally Posted by KillerShots

I've never used eggdrop... I've always been an Apache2 guy, and 64M was more than enough memory to handle that.

Eggdrop is an IRC bot, not an HTTP daemon. Apache 2 would be overkill for the application (a CGI::Proxy). Lightweight daemons such as Mathopd would be far less RAM hungry, especially important since the machine has 128MB RAM.

For file sharing, Samba is perfectly adequite.

As for Gentoo, unless you have plenty of time to maintain it (lots of compiling), or you somehow feel that watching hours of GCC compiles is in some way "leet", it would be better to stick to a distro which has binary packages.

Though, of course, the perfect OS is an entirely subjective matter. There are no right and wrong answers, use whatever you feel most comfortable with.

[KillerShots]

Originally Posted by scottlc

Eggdrop is an IRC bot, not an HTTP daemon.

Heh, from the context above I was assuming it was an HTTP daemon. My mistake .

[gameman733]

hmm... so much good information. Thanks. I think im going to either go with linux (probebly CentOS or fedora), or freeBSD. FreeBSD has a lot of good information right on their website (more than linux distros from what i remember).

Something else that came to mind, my proxy server is encrypted (ssl), and requires a username and password. I know apache can do both but what about Mathopd? an example of my setup is here https://gameman733.serveftp.com

[scottlc]

Originally Posted by gameman733

hmm... so much good information. Thanks. I think im going to either go with linux (probebly CentOS or fedora), or freeBSD. FreeBSD has a lot of good information right on their website (more than linux distros from what i remember).

Something else that came to mind, my proxy server is encrypted (ssl), and requires a username and password. I know apache can do both but what about Mathopd? an example of my setup is here https://gameman733.serveftp.com

Mathopd doesn't support SSL.