I am now a Linux convert. . .

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m feeling über-l33t right now. I’m a complete Linux virgin, and I just set up a Linux file server for $160!

Some of you may know that I tinker with computers - I’m always upgrading components pretty regularly, and I’ve built several PCs from scratch. But always Windows - I’ve never had the guts to tinker around with Linux.

Well, I saw this barebones MSI Wind system on newegg - it’s cheap enough new ($140), but I got an open box special for around $90. I’d always been meaning to build a cheap little file server/homebrew NAS, so I got a 500GB hdd for $70, and I already had a stick of laptop DDR2 2GB memory and an old DVD drive lying around. But even if I’d had to buy those, I still would have been under $200.

So I put it all together (took about 10 minutes - quickest build I’ve ever done), and made sure it posted, then went looking online for the cheapest way to share a network drive using Windows. I kept on seeing Samba/Linux references pop up in response to noobs looking to set up cheap, simple file servers so I decided to give it a shot. My first attempt at creating a LiveCD for Ubuntu hadn’t worked too well due to a corrupted burn, and I was running out of CD media, so I followed some instructions on creating a LiveUSB stick.

Booted the new system off the stick, poked around a little with Ubuntu, then bit the bullet and installed to the hdd, and everything worked fine. Got Samba installed, and poked around with Sudo commands and cfg files until - voila - I have a drive available over the network! Mapped it on my desktop PC, and ba-da-bing, I have a quick and dirty file server! Yaay!

The really cool thing about this is how easy it all was to set Ubuntu up to a default state - it had everything one would need on a basic desktop (Forefox, OpenOffice, Evolution email/Outlook clone), and has a lot of Vista-like desktop effects, but without the resource hit. And it didn’t take an hour to install and patch to get up and running as is typically the case with Windows.

Granted, I won’t be giving up my Windows box anytime soon - not until WoW and Call of Duty are available in Linux, and all the mainstream hardware mfgrs start producing stable Linux drivers. . . but I set up a $160 Linux server! That is just so damn cool.

And for anyone who is looking for a dirt-cheap, modest PC - the MSI Wind PC is really sweet. It’s not going to run any 3d games (hell, it can barely play Youtube videos without stuttering the playback) but as a browser/office system, it’s super-easy to set up.

Anyway, I was positively giddy with excitement, and I just wanted to share.

2

Nice one. Well done.

If you’re tinkering with small-scale servers, you might find SME Server interesting - I used it on a modest ex-Win9x box (OK, with a few upgrades) to run email and file services for a small company.

It’s easy to install and nearly all of the day-to-day admin is done through a web GUI.

http://www.smeserver.org/

3

On the Windows side, Windows Home Server is very good, but expensive.

4

Very cool!

He built this server for $160, total. Just the software for Windows Home Server retailed for over double that last time I looked.

5

Welcome to the Light Side. (posting from Ubuntu 8.6, updating to 8.10 this weekend)

6

Congratulations!

That looks like a nice cheap little box. Might think about getting one to replace the aging eMachine I have running Ubuntu in the kids’ closet.

If you are just looking for using it as a server, you might want to try a server install of Ubuntu, which comes with absolutely no cruft, and you just add the bits you want as you need them.

For example, I’m running Samba, ssh (so I can administer it in the closet), nptd daemon to keep the clock accurate, and a combo of Squid + DansGuardian to serve as a proxy server to keep the kids away from the dark underbelly of the Internet.

There are good guides on the Net showing how to do this setup; I have documented my own config carefully since I repeat it frequently for other folks. If you are interested, send a PM.

Enjoy your new Linux box. When the cleaning lady doesn’t unplug it accidentally, it often goes 6 months without a reboot.

7

True. I did say it was expensive. But WHS has a killer feature: backing up workstations. You can do the usual restore of files, but you can also re-image after a HDD failure. Boot off the recovery CD and go and have lunch. If you’ve got 2 or more PCs at home, then WHS is a sound investment for the disaster-conscious.

8

Thanks for the offer. I debated downloading the server version, but decided not to for a couple reasons:

  1. I am not comfortable with the idea of managing a system via command line. Just working with sudo and hacking the cfg file was a very alien experience for me. Which is kind of ironic, since my first computing experience was in BASIC on a TRS-80 CoCo. My first and only program: 10 Print “some dirty word”, 20 goto 10 (juvenile giggles ensue).

And 2) I decided that this would be a dual-purpose system - since it’s always on and a very low-power system, I can do lite web-browsing and OpenOffice stuff on it without turning on my main box and really sucking up the juice. At 44 watts at 100% load, this system draws about a third the power that my main PC does . I can’t count the number of times I’ve turned on that fricking wind tunnel - with it’s 3 12cm fans and huge video card blowing away - just to look up directions on Google Maps.

Plus, I quite like the Ubuntu interface (thinking of trying out KDE though).

9

I considered that aspect of WHS, but I work for a software company that makes some client-based products (both consumer and enterprise) that do the same thing but the other way round - schedule all the backup events on the Windows client, agnostic of storage location, then use a boot-CD to load up the client and access a bare-metal recovery image in the event of a failure. Since I get these for a great price (free!), I figure I’ll stick with this route. :slight_smile:

10

Oh, and thanks for the SMEServer suggestion - I had seen reference to it on a couple searches, but hadn’t seen any first-hand accounts of how it works.

I’m thinking I need another box now so I can start tinkering with more stuff. . .

11

Just remember - when all else fails, if you log in as root and type rm -rf ~/* - all your troubles will then be gone.

of course so will everything else…

12

That only takes out root’s home directory, doesn’t it? I thought that to do real damage, you needed to be root and type **rm -r ***. :slight_smile:

13

Make that rm -rf /.

14

Only six months? It’s gotten worse :wink: When I ran an Internet broadcasting business, my Linux server ran for over two years without rebooting. Then I had to take it down and completely reconfigure everything.

That sounds pretty cool. Does it work anything like Time Machine on OS/X 10.5? I absolutely love that feature.

15

It’s in the kids’ closet. What more do I need to say?
Besides, we do have one or two power failures per year and I don’t have any fancy schmancy battery backup system.

About that command-line stuff: the basics for care and feeding of a simple server are a few dozen commands, written on a crib sheet. Not much more than that. Once you set the thing up, you really can just forget about, especially if you set the BIOS to auto-restart on power failure.

I put one of these servers in a classroom at the kids’ school and whenever they have any problems, I just tell them to turn it off and on, it magically regains its composure and all is well.

16

What’s the client side of the workstation backup? I’m always looking for new and better backup systems.

17

BackupPC is an opensource workstation backup tool for Linux. There are plenty of other solutions as well - many which use single instance stores to optimise space usage, and unobtrusive windows clients (and PXE boot for rebuilds).

And Samba supports Shadowcopy, too, to retain prior copies of files on file servers.

I’m a big fan of SME Server - fast, reliable, easy to manage (no config files to edit, all the features you usually need). I set up a system in 2001 for my kids school, then promptly moved to the UK. The box kept running for years, and the school head went round promoting the system to other schools, she was so happy with it.

Si

18

The company I work for (Symantec) makes Norton Ghost - while it has some native Linux support, I’ve heard it’s not great. But since my backup concerns are all around Windows boxes, this will work well enough for me. It does incremental block-based backup (where only the original file is saved in whole, then any new versions are saved as deltas), and a couple other things I want, and the price is right (for me anyways - at $70 retail, YMMV).