Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop as Home Server - Newbie

[RevTom]

I did check a bunch of forums, post and other unofficial websites before posting. I'm sure the into I want is out there, but it is hard to find.

I'm new to having a home server. I installed Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop on an old PC and attached an 1 TB external (USB 2.0) drive for Network Attached Storage. I installed Samba. I hooked it up to the network via lan (the other computers are connected wirelessly). So far, so good. I can see the external drive from all my network connected computers. I can save to it, and get files from it. BUT....

1. It is infernally slow. The ubuntu machine I attached it to is a 2.4 GHz AMD, with 1 Gig of RAM. If want to look at a picture on the drive, it takes forever to come up on my client machine. MUCH slower than say, a picture on a website Is there a way to speed things up?

2. I'd like to use a photo manager to see and manage my photos on the NAS from any of my machines on the network. But I can't figure out how to do anything except transfer photos to it, like backing up, or saving to a very slow hard drive.

3. I'd like to store music on the NAS, and stream it wherever. Can't seem to figure that out either.

A lot of my trouble seems to be that there is so much info out there, and all of it seems to be for different versions of Ubuntu.

Thanks for your help!

[gordintoronto]

I can only comment on the speed. A USB 2.0 drive will always be very slow compared to an internal drive.

[offgridguy]

Just a comment on the photo manager, I haven't found one that I am totally happy with yet. Photoshop or ACDSee doesn't seem to be available in linux version. If you know of
a good one, let me know please. Thank you.