Which Linux for Personal Server

[takisan]

I'm in the process of doing a practically complete hardware swap between my systems, and I've hit a slight cache.

It seems almost useless to ask, but I'm wondering what Server Distro to put on one. I'm not thinking Mac OS X or Windows or OS/2 or some other eccentric choice, but I'm really going to want to think this through so as to have the best distro for what I'm going to be using it for:


HTTP
FTP
Gopher
Samba
IMAP
POP3
SMTP
IRC
XMPP
Telnet Chat and Telnet BBS

Opinions Please!

[Sporkman]

a slight cache

:lol:

[jerenept]

FreeBSD.

That is all.

[Dr. C]

I use gNewSense (http://www.gnewsense.org/) for a personal server. All the traffic in and out of the network has to go through this server and is subject to inspection and / or blocking by this server running 100% Free Software. This can be useful when a propriety application or OS in the network wants to "call home" for example Microsoft Windows computer, a PS3, a Blu-ray player etc. It also provides a 100% clean system to catch any violation of Canada's privacy laws, and this may be very relevant under the proposed amendments to Canada's Copyright Act.

The idea is to place 100% Free Software in a critical choke point.

[sandyd]

I'm in the process of doing a practically complete hardware swap between my systems, and I've hit a slight cache.

It seems almost useless to ask, but I'm wondering what Server Distro to put on one. I'm not thinking Mac OS X or Windows or OS/2 or some other eccentric choice, but I'm really going to want to think this through so as to have the best distro for what I'm going to be using it for:


HTTP
FTP
Gopher
Samba
IMAP
POP3
SMTP
IRC
XMPP
Telnet Chat and Telnet BBS

Opinions Please!
any would be quite fine, really. lemme see....
http -apache
ftp - pureftpd/proftpd/vsftpd (pureftpd has low mem usage)
Gopher -pygopherd
Samba - Samba
IMAP/Pop3/SMTP - Courier/PostFix
IRC - ircd-hybrid (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/IrcServer)
XMPP - OpenFire??

all of this stuff is avalible on debian/ubuntu/gentoo

all of them use the same amount of resources with this configuration, unless you really squish the use flags with gentoo

[jerenept]

I use gNewSense (http://www.gnewsense.org/) for a personal server. All the traffic in and out of the network has to go through this server and is subject to inspection and / or blocking by this server running 100% Free Software. This can be useful when a propriety application or OS in the network wants to "call home" for example Microsoft Windows computer, a PS3, a Blu-ray player etc. It also provides a 100% clean system to catch any violation of Canada's privacy laws, and this may be very relevant under the proposed amendments to Canada's Copyright Act.

The idea is to place 100% Free Software in a critical choke point.

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i117/tallykat668/tinfoilhat.jpg

[takisan]

Well, I've decided on Ubuntu (no suprises, but I was looking for opinions), because 1). I've used Ubuntu Server Edition Before (but I didn't know how to configure it), 2) I like APT, and 3) having sudo pre-configured is a lot easier than having to configure it by editing the sudoers file.

[jerenept]

Well, I've decided on Ubuntu (no suprises, but I was looking for opinions), because 1). I've used Ubuntu Server Edition Before (but I didn't know how to configure it), 2) I like APT, and 3) having sudo pre-configured is a lot easier than having to configure it by editing the sudoers file.

well, the sig kind of gives it away.... but i still recommend freebsd.

[Sporkman]

I highly recommend Ubuntu Server - it's rock solid, and easy to configure.

[kaldor]

Ubuntu's a great choice on the server.

FreeBSD and CentOS make great choices too.