Linux server

[Sir Asvald]

I've got a spare PC that is collecting dust. It uses a Pentium G630 and has 4GB ram. I want to put Linux server on it, only issue is that I don't know a lot about the server version. What features does it have? I know there's the lamp, Apache, DHCP and DNS. What else is there? 

 

Thank you.

 

[LAwLz]

What server OS are you talking about exactly? There is more than one GNU/Linux distro intended for servers, and they all have different features out-of-the-box.

Out-of-the-box should not really matter though. For a server where you're just going to tinker then I would recommend Ubuntu. Not because it is the best server distro (not by a long shot) but because it will be easier for you to learn the fundamentals thanks to it being the most popular distro.

 

As for what type of server software you can run on it...

Webserver (like you mentioned, Apache or maybe nginx)

Mail server

DHCP

DNS

File server (Samba)

Print server (if you got multiple printers)

IoT controller

Game servers

Server for some application you are using (like Syncplay, or Hentai@Home, or something else)

Syslog server (maybe something that collects data through SNMP too?)

Torrent box (seeding, as well as automatic downloading of things with RSS)

IDS/IPS with for example Snort.

[Sir Asvald]

8 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

What server OS are you talking about exactly? There is more than one GNU/Linux distro intended for servers, and they all have different features out-of-the-box.

Out-of-the-box should not really matter though. For a server where you're just going to tinker then I would recommend Ubuntu. Not because it is the best server distro (not by a long shot) but because it will be easier for you to learn the fundamentals thanks to it being the most popular distro.

 

As for what type of server software you can run on it...

Webserver (like you mentioned, Apache or maybe nginx)

Mail server

DHCP

DNS

File server (Samba)

Print server (if you got multiple printers)

IoT controller

Game servers

Server for some application you are using (like Syncplay, or Hentai@Home, or something else)

Syslog server (maybe something that collects data through SNMP too?)

Torrent box (seeding, as well as automatic downloading of things with RSS)

IDS/IPS with for example Snort.

Is NGIX free? 

[vanished]

33 minutes ago, Abdul201588 said:

Is NGIX free? 

All versions of Linux are free.  If it's not it's a scam.  That said some companies will charge for support, which makes sense.

[LAwLz]

30 minutes ago, Abdul201588 said:

Is NGIX free? 

Yes

I host my website with it (on a Raspberry Pi 2). Works like a charm. 

[Sir Asvald]

20 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

All versions of Linux are free.  If it's not it's a scam.  That said some companies will charge for support, which makes sense.

 

20 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Yes

I host my website with it (on a Raspberry Pi 2). Works like a charm. 

I see. I'm currently hosting my site on a windows 2012 server. I'll look into it. I'll play around with out as VM before actually installing it on the PC.

 

 

[Sir Asvald]

18 minutes ago, CUDA_Cores said:

what are you planning to do with this machine? do you want to just run experiemental software on it or something else?

 

If it was me I would tear down the machine and keep it around for spare parts. The mobo can be used to test LGA 1155 CPUs and DDR3. The power supply can be used to power stuff to test if the parts works and the HDD can be used to throw windows 10 on it and boot up into windows on different computers. Having spare parts laying around if you build your own PCs can be very helpful if something breaks. 

Too bad it's a dell Pre-built  I would have sold it otherwise if it wasn't  

[burnsmorgan14]

If you want to start of playing with servers, I'd suggest Ubuntu Server. It's easy to use, free and you can find lots of help online.

 

You could start off by installing the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and maybe setup something like ownCloud server on top of the LAMP stack for a personal "cloud"