MysticalGnome

I use PrimeOS on my Dell Latitude 2in1 which works great however not all hardware is supported, notably wired connectivity and webcams.

Most of this should be more than doable on a normal PC, an 8-core i9 9900K or maybe the upcoming Ryzen 7 3800X would probably be fine I think. I would go with at least 16GB RAM and maybe more if you want to run them simultaneous. I also think you should be able to play some older games on it while the game servers are running but this depends on the titles you want top run. A more important thing I think would be network connectivity, if you are going to host a steam cache and you have more than 6 PC's downloading at the same time i would opt for a 10Gb NIC and a switch with one 10Gb port and the rest of the ports Gigabit this would greatly increase throughput and prevent latency during gaming because somebody is clogging the line when they upload files to your share. As for the OS, Windows 8 or higher would be fine although some old games may not run on it. I take it you found this already but I'll add it none the less:

What kind of CPU are you using right now? Also can you spin up a second host to see if there is an issue with the guest OS itself?

This looks to me that you either don't have internet access on that system or that DNS isn't functioning properly. You could try manually setting the DNS server to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8 in the network manager.

What kind of system are you running it on? how much cpu cores did you assign to your VM? (4 would be the bare minimal for any gaming) Did you install the vmware tools on your VM.

I am not familiar with MailCow but there are a number of tutorials that help you setup a basic mail server on Ubuntu using Postfix, digitalocean has quiet a few they are pretty basic but they get the job done also I wouldn't use POP3 go for IMAP. But this does not cover things like creating the A and MX DNS records and things like preventing your mail server from becoming an open relay server not to mention spam filtering or blocking account hacking attempts on your mail server. As for connecting it to cloudflare a quick google will tell you how to do that. You could also just host your mail domain at a e-mail host provider, it's very affordable and takes away all the complexities of setting it up yourself and maintaining it.

Most likely there is no password on the user and it can only be accessed with a ssh public key, if you can login to the machine with putty as the ubuntu user you could get root access with "sudo -i" and than assign a password to the user you want to access "passwd <insert_username>".

Also the USG from Ubiquity is not especially powerful so I would opt for something more high-end if you want higher speed connectivity. My personal experience with these types of VPN services is that it can drastically reduce the snappiness of your internet, this is mostly because the outward facing side of the VPN is limited in available bandwidth and will be slower than your internet speed unless you already have some really slow internet.

Your question is somewhat vague, from what exactly do you want to protect your machines?

You could just portforward it from your router to your server, but this might not be the most safe option. Another way would be to setup a VPN server on your home network and make it accessible from the internet so you can create a secure connection to your home network and have access to your server from there.

The installation is already complete at that point, GRUB is the last thing to be installed but you do need it or you won't be able to boot into your OS. I would suggest hooking up your laptop to an external display, it should work for your Ubuntu installation and possibly your bios as well.

Anything that is supported by DOS 6/7 really, so a 486DX or Pentium 1 system with a sound blaster compatible sound card. 64MB of system RAM should be more than enough to run anything in DOS, a floppy drive and an IDE CD-ROM drive should also be on the list. With that you should have everything you need. You could go the easier route and get a Pentium 2/3 with Windows 98 which is essentially DOS with a GUI.

HP DL360 G8/9 would do just fine they only take up 1U in stead of 2U and perform the same, Dell PE R610 is also a good choice. We used XenServer in the past and pooled several servers together with a SAN backend which worked great as it allowed us to live migrate VM's to another server so we could perform maintenance on the Xen host, we also use BIND and while maybe not the best DNS server perse it does perform great, the only thing I really don't like about it is that it is really easy to screw up the configuration with a typo.

You can buy them no problem, like here. There are multiple models available with 2 or 4 GB of RAM, the APU4 seems to be the latest iteration. There is also a case available for this board in multiple colors for a few euros.

Another low power (5 watts) option could be the PC Engines APU 3 B4 it's a great board which has 3 Intel NICS on it and 3 mini pcie slots, one of them doubles as a msata slot for your OS. It also has two sim slots for LTE. Only downside is that it has no video output so it is strictly terminal and serial connectivity.

I have had this same issue with my PC, long story short both the Intel GPU and the Nvidia GPU where both enabled which prevented the GUI from loading. After having removed the Nvidia driver and blacklisting nouveau I got my desktop to work. Note that I deliberately disabled my Nvidia card in the OS because I wanted to use it for my Windows VM before somebody asks. So Maybe this will give you a clue, I have had troubles with XPS machines and Ubuntu in the past which was mostly due to the Intel and Nvidia GPU banging heads.

Ubuntu or Debian is a good place to start, the only significant difference between Debian based and Redhat based distros is that the latter has it's important config files in /etc/sysconfig/ and it uses SELINUX instead of AppArmor, another difference is the logfiles but this is a minor thing.

Do note that like I stated I am in a WiFi congested area so I am giving the range that I am able to attain so pretty much worst case scenario. My walls are made from bricks and stone floors so my AP will have a harder time going far certainly on the 5Ghz band. So It really depends on how his house is build what the placement will be and if there are allot of concrete walls/ceilings. If there are concrete walls and ceilings you will definitely want one downstairs and one upstairs. The garden and maybe a shed would also need coverage so at bare minimum one in the back, and then there is no guaranty that you would have full coverage. So while four may seem much it really depends on the placement and what speeds he is hoping to attain. Alternatively he could buy one for starters and strategically place it in the house probably in the middle and do some measurements with speedtest and wifi analyzer. Then walk around till the point that he thinks the signal is to weak/slow and place it over there and repeat this process until he has the coverage he wants.

Microsoft allows you to download it from their website because almost no manufacturer or reseller of PC hardware includes a physical copy of the OS anymore and because of the rapid update cycle of Windows 10 it would make sense that you are able to install the latest version of Windows 10 if you should have to reinstall it without having to wait for hours on Windows Updates and countless reboots. Also my last quote which is from the end user agreement states very clearly that a trial copy is not to be used in a live environment (so that means your computer which you actively use) and is for demo purposes only (try and buy) and you are not allowed to use it after the 30 day trial period. Also just because it continues to work does not mean you are legally allowed to use it, even if Microsoft takes no action to this right now, if it came to a court case you would be on the losing end of the stick but Microsoft would never bother to do that for civilian cases only for companies.

I recommended the switch in case you should decide to connect more than just the access points, seeing as you want decent WiFi coverage 4 ap's would be recommended leaving you with no free ports for other devices. There is also a 8 port switch variant which has 4 POE ports if a 24 port is to big for your needs. I have the AC Lite and it gets about 600-700 sq ft coverage (WiFi congested area), within 20 feet of the AP I get 150-280Mbits on my phone for instance, but on the edge of coverage I barely get 15-20Mbits. I also use the AC Pro at the office (3 of them) and they will give you better speeds and a bigger coverage area about 1000 sq ft. If you have allot of WiFi devices (more than 5 clients per access point) I would opt for the AC Pro otherwise the AC Lite will do fine. I have included an image to make it more clear (hopefully :P)

Does this 2000 sq ft need Wifi coverage seems like a big area to cover, you would need at least 4 access points, depending on the placement maybe more. I would also consider a POE switch in that case, the Unifi Switch 24 port switch (US‑24‑250W) would be fine for that. The main difference between the AC Lite and Pro is that the Pro supports POE(+) and the Lite requires a passive 24V POE adapter also the Pro has an additional wifi channel which means it should have a better throughput on the 5GHz band with multiple clients. Range wise the Pro is on par with the AC-LR.

If you only play newer titles than you should be fine with Windows 10, performance wise it should be equal or better than Windows 7 in games. But there are a lot of older titles that won't run on Windows 10, a multi boot with Windows 7 and 10 would then be the best option but you would have to install GRUB as the bootloader since Windows does not support booting to multiple operating systems.

I only quoted a small piece of the document, there is obviously allot more to it than this. (ii) Evaluation. For evaluation (or test or demonstration) use, you may not sell the software, use it in a live operating environment, or use it after the evaluation period. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Agreement, evaluation software is provided “AS IS” and no warranty, implied or express (including the Limited Warranty), applies to these versions.

Please don't go saying its not piracy as it is, Microsoft also states this very clearly in their terms of usage you are only allowed to use Windows outside of the 30 day trial if you have a genuine license key. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Useterms/Retail/Windows/10/UseTerms_Retail_Windows_10_English.htm Authorized Software and Activation. You are authorized to use this software only if you are properly licensed and the software has been properly activated with a genuine product key or by other authorized method. When you connect to the Internet while using the software, the software will automatically contact Microsoft or its affiliate to conduct activation to associate it with a certain device. You can also activate the software manually by Internet or telephone. In either case, transmission of certain information will occur, and Internet, telephone and SMS service charges may apply. During activation (or reactivation that may be triggered by changes to your device’s components), the software may determine that the installed instance of the software is counterfeit, improperly licensed or includes unauthorized changes. If activation fails, the software will attempt to repair itself by replacing any tampered Microsoft software with genuine Microsoft software. You may also receive reminders to obtain a proper license for the software. Successful activation does not confirm that the software is genuine or properly licensed. You may not bypass or circumvent activation. To help determine if your software is genuine and whether you are properly licensed, see (aka.ms/genuine). Certain updates, support, and other services might only be offered to users of genuine Microsoft software.

Yes you can do that but they will interfere with each other and it will degrade the overall wifi speed because multiple signals are clashing on the same channel. Mesh is only ever useful in situations where you cannot get a network cable to your access points but since you have them connected to your modem it makes no sense to use mesh based connectivity between your asus routers and your client devices.