setting up a server - recomendations

[Alan_152]

I would start slow and non permanent. A great way to experiment would be with a LiveCD linux. I've used Knoppix LiveCD as a temporary web server before. Easy enough to set up, and if you really goof up just reboot and start over again.

Another recommendation I have is that if you are more familiar with the windows world and want to step into linux web serving, get yourself a windows workstation and install apache for windows (www.apache.org). You'll need to, at some point, learn how the httpd.conf file works in Linux, so learn it in an environment you are familiar with. This is how I teach my students who are new to Linux -- start them off with something they do know and integrate a little linux into it.

Another hint I would give is that you should get ahold of, install, and use, a copy of VI for Windows (aka VIM for Windows). Get used to working with VI, and *nix becomes a whole lot easier.

Finally, get ahold of "unix for dos" and get used to using commands like grep, ls, head, tail, etc...

[Antony Wright]

Thanks Alan, that sounds like a great idea. In fack my wife has just found me a cheep copy of Win NT to set the server up with to start with and your suggestions will allow me to try a few things out.
But as much as Im familiar with MS Win - I do want to make that change over for the reliability and security I I know is there in Linux.

Antony

[John Collier]

To anybody really paying attention to my previous posts, you will no doubt recognize the following from a previous thread I responded to. Please forgive my lack of gumption in retyping the whole thing.

***************
Thought I might expand on the idea of Knoppix.

Knoppix is what is considered a Live CD. What this means, in a nutshell, is that they entire distribution is bootable and will run directly and completely from a CD with no need to alter your hard drive at all. For those who are searching for a Linux distro that they like, this is a WONDERFUL thing.

Now, while Knoppix is one of the best-known Live CDs, it is NOT the only one available. There are many out there that will give you all kinds of different experiences with many different types of Linux. For a rather extensive list of Live CDs, I suggest you check out this URL: http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

One other thing to consider. No matter what distro you choose to go with, your experience will be much the same if all you do is use the GUI (Graphical User Interface) on each of the available distros due to the fact that a large majority of them will use either KDE or Gnome for a GUI. Once you get used to them, then you will see very little that is really different until you start digging "under the hood" of each of them and finding out how they do things (updates, installs, removals, etc.). This is also the most important place to look when you really start the decision process on what to actually install on your hard drive. You need to be sure that you can manipulate it with relative ease and get the basics accomplished with that distro before you make big changes to your hardware.

Just my $0.02 on the subject...

[Antony Wright]

Thanks John,
I have a copy of Mandriva 2006 which seems to fit into that catagory so I shall start with using that as a live copy.
I guess I feel like I did many years ago when I first booted up a dos computer and stared at a screen of info I didnt understand. The advantage I have now is that there are many people out there that can respond to my lack of knowledge and guide me through while I learn a new system.

The help from all you good folk is very much appreciated and gives me hope that the journey this time wont be quite so bumpy.

Antony

[Yogeeraj_1]

hi antony,

Whatever linux distribution you choose, the truth is that until and unless you start working with it you will not appreciate the operating system.

Indeed if you can partition your server (dual boot) such that it can run both the Windows Operating system and Linux.

You can try both environment in this way.

good luck.

kind regards
yogeeraj

[Antony Wright]

Hi all
Well heres the first of I guess what will be a series of silly questions to those of you that know what your doing.
Ive booted up the server and set the array to 5 (apparently it does have an integrated raid array). Ive inserted the smartstart disc but nothing seems to be happening (cd light is active flashing on and off occasionally). I assume that the smartstart is a bootable cdrom so I am guessing I have missed something in my reading. I have assumed that this is the first step? or am I meant to put in the boot disc from the os first? or am I meant to create a particular disc first?

Thanks
Antony

[kcpant]

Hi Antony,

If you have already setup your disks for RAID, there is no need to boot the system with SmartStart CD. That is required only if you want to setup RAID, HDD, date& time and Windows OS. For linux setup, you start booting your system with your distros first CD (make sure it is bootable, and also check whether the CD drive is good or not). You can also change the OS setting of your server's BIOS from Windows to "Other" or "linux", if there is an option to do so.

regards,

[Antony Wright]

Back again :(
Ive put in a copy of Mandriva 2006 live. It started the boot no problem but part way through it gives me the following:
------------------------------------
Mounting loop image on /initrd/loopfs: mount: mounting /dev/loop/0 on/initrd/loopfs: failed
:invalid argument

ERROR: Unable to mount loop filesystem, Dropping you to a limited shell.
Commands were:
Iosetup /dev/loop/0 initrd/cdrom/livecd.sqfs
mount -r -t squashfs /dev/loop/0 initrd/loopfs
Loading /initrd/bin/ash

BusyBox v1.01 (2005.09.06-17:31+0000) Built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

/initrd/bin/ash: cant access tty: job control turned off

-------------------------------------

Im presuming nothing here as my understanding is too limited but I suspect that the hard drive is not formated? tty? network? I dont have the network cable attached as yet.

Antony

[Vipulinux]

Hi

Did you got any errors while you were installing ??/
Also try an fsck from the limited sheet that you get.

Cheers

[Antony Wright]

that was the first error that I saw.

fsck not found

Antony