Hi all.
I've purchased a Mini-ITX computer with the idea of
setting up my owm home-little-internet-server...

With service of FTP (for share files with a reduced number of friends )
and Web (tho host some web-pages of mine... )
a liitle Mail server...
etc. etc...

I know that the best option talking about operating systems is Linux, but
due my minimal knowledge about Linux i've decided to install WindowsXP Pro,
much much easier to admin.

Do you have any suggestion about what sofware to install...?

I'm thinking about Serv-U as FTP server, Apache as web server,
probably with MySQL, and Argosoft Mail Server for mail...

Any suggestion will be great great appretiated...
Or if you know another ofrum where to talk about this topics...
Best regards to all.

b:.

if you dont want to fiddle with apache you can try http://www.aprelium.com/ (i made it work with perl, php and mysql)

For easy-to-install apache+php+mysql package try: FoxServ.

Bad call. Everyone has to start learning somewhere and you'll never learn if you don't try. It's really not that much more difficult than Windows. Some things are even easier.

EDIT:
Come to think about it, many things are easier with Linux. Just about all server distributions comes with all the software you need, some even in the default installation.

Two words: Use GNU/Linux (or one of the BSDs)!
There are enough user-friendly distributions and HowTos, which fit your task just perfectly. It will be easier (and a lot faster and more secure) than setting up all the Windows crap.
dev0

tangent / dev0

The choice of Windows instead of Linux is a preference based in
my time dispossal to the "project"...

But following your sugestions il try an alternative... first i'll mount
the Windows server (that I'll hope will be easy and fast), and
later i'll dedicate a second partition in my Server to the installation of
a Linux server, If the adventure goes fine I'll delete the windows


I've just created the partition

Well, another suggestion that I need...?
Wich distribution of Linux do you recommend me?

Thanks a lot for taking your time answering me.
Best regards.

b:.

I would suggest RedHat 8. I've worked with all the RedHat distributions since version 5 and found them pretty stable and complete. I think RedHat is trying to make Linux easier for Windows users since you can practically set everything up now in the GUI.

Just my two cents.

My suggestion is RedHat 8.0 too. It's been great for me and I've been using it since 6.1. Auto updating is very simple too, thanks to up2date.

You'll be surprised how fast it is to get stuff running with Linux. And when you run into trouble, you can easily get help from Google, linuxdocs.org, or irc.freenode.net#linux #redhat

Do yourself a favor and use GNU/Linux. Settting up servers under Windows is a pain in the ass and with RedHat8 you'll have a secure, stable and fast Internet Server in just Minutes.
dev0

a. any comments on netBSD? (looks like only active distribution of *nix for amiga platform today, and i want to use my old amiga4000 as http, ftp, telnet server on lan and out as well)

b. (super offtopic) any ideas where to get an ethernet card that would plug nicely on d-link router? (for amiga4000 that is)

Hrm... the Linux freaks will probably flame me for this, but I use Win2000 and all servers work perfectly.

I use Apache for HTTP server, Serv-U for FTP server and IRCplus for IRC server.
It was never a "pain in the ass" to set up any of these servers. (except editing the Apache and PHP config files, but I believe the process is the same on Linux)

Regards;

Roberto.

I'd like to second the vote for Win2k. It has proven to be a stable system (been running for 4 months now... and this is my main computer) with VShell for SSH and SFTP, VNC for remote conections, and MySQL. I don't run the http server at home, I let my university do that for me

Anyway, to say that Windows admining is hard is a joke. For most daemons, you just click on Next a few times and it just works.

But, if you want to go with a non-windows server, I would suggest one of the BSDs. You already mentioned NetBSD, which will work great.

And if you really want to try Linux, give Knoppix a shot. It is a self-hosted bootable CD that will not affect your current configuration, so you can try it out with no risk involved. If you like it, it will also work as an installer for Debian, which is one of the best Linux distros out there.

heh, i found one for like 90 euros , i think i will forget the idea unless i get it relly cheap somewhere secondhand..., any ideas on where to look at (nothing on ebay)

Well, that is true an out of the box Win2k "Internet Server" is as easy to install as the common GNU/Linux/Apache Distributions and probably even a bit easier to administrate (familiar user interface). But as soon as you start doing the more powerful non-out-of-box things (Win2k: Active Directory with 100+ Users, Linux: LDAP, Webserver for 100+ users) and Securtiy both OSes require a lot of work and knowledge.
Don't get me wrong: I agree that Win2k(3) is an extremely powerful OS for intranet (Active Directory rocks) and even small internet servers, but GNU/Linux or a BSD running Apache is still a better choice for a secure Internet Server.
dev0