best free OS for old server 4 home use

Thread Starter

electronis whiz

Joined Jul 29, 2010
512
i have an old server using as a file server. was running win XP pro, but don't feel like activating then the os disk failed. so now i just want to use linux i'm prety sure. but tryed linux boot and they error out. its a SCSI system so may need linux drivers, if so how to i load them? system has 4 CPU 2X p3 xeons with 2 cpus in each. would like to use all xp only used 2. 32 bit system 512 mb ram max is 1GB witch i can add, but made boot slower so removed. is their a limit in linux of CPUs, also for this systm SCSI with 4 CPU any recomended OS to try. i have ubuntu, suse, fedore. the first 2 errored out i only have 64 bit fedora so havent tryed that. considerd free nas, but what i have heared is hard to use. i know a bit about linux so it won't relly be that new.
 

nerdegutta

Joined Dec 15, 2009
2,684
i have an old server using as a file server. was running win XP pro, but don't feel like activating then the os disk failed. so now i just want to use linux i'm prety sure. but tryed linux boot and they error out. its a SCSI system so may need linux drivers, if so how to i load them? system has 4 CPU 2X p3 xeons with 2 cpus in each. would like to use all xp only used 2. 32 bit system 512 mb ram max is 1GB witch i can add, but made boot slower so removed. is their a limit in linux of CPUs, also for this systm SCSI with 4 CPU any recomended OS to try. i have ubuntu, suse, fedore. the first 2 errored out i only have 64 bit fedora so havent tryed that. considerd free nas, but what i have heared is hard to use. i know a bit about linux so it won't relly be that new.
Hi,

I had FreeNAS for about two years. It was running on an old SCSI box with 3 or 4 HDD's It ran smoothly. I thought it was pretty simple to set up, all done in a WEB GUI.

Now I have a few servers, all running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS server. Had no problem with them. I had to change from FreeNAS due to the need of more services. Mail, FTP, WEB. etc.

I had no issues configuring them. I also have Citrix Xen, virtual server, running 4 virtual machines, all Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

The problems I faced, was bad hardware and too old stuff. The servers came from a serverpark from a really big company. I frequently back up my data.:)

Have you tried to check the downloaded boot disk from Ubuntu, or tried to make a new one. There is a feature of making a Boot USB. Perhaps that is safer/less error variables, and quicker?

Are you only going to use the server as a file sharing/backup server?
 

Thread Starter

electronis whiz

Joined Jul 29, 2010
512
ok thanks for the info on free nas. it won't boot to usb though only options are cd, dvd (dvd if boot to IDE) or copy files to seprate HDD and install to os drive. windows xp and server 2000 booted ok i got into the recovery environment, so i know the drive and SCSI bus work. based on it loads then errrs out saying disk read error i'd usume the disk is corupt, or the SCSI controler needs a driver. will try another system to see if the cd may be corupt. i suspect it's a driver or something related though.
 

bertus

Joined Apr 5, 2008
22,270
Hello,

You might want to have a look at CentOS, the community enterprise operating system.
http://www.centos.org/
It is more stable as fedora and also closely related to red hat.
We use it in our office to run the linux server.

Bertus
 

Thread Starter

electronis whiz

Joined Jul 29, 2010
512
i downloaded CETNOS 5.8. i am curently trying out using virtual box to see how i like it, and if will work for my purpose. i know alot of the basics of linux. i installed it in server mode hoping this will get me to learn a bit more baout linux, and it's a fairly old system so the less extras the better it should run. i configured a static i.p info on it. added NFS, SMB to it and made a new directory to act as a share. i saw something about authentication and left the defaults and added SMB authentication. is that what i need or not? most of my systems are windows and maybey a few linux primary acces to server will be windows. if this is not what do i enable to authenticate and share folders to windows systems. i saw something about samba was required to do this, but thought SMB, NFS enabled would be enough. also once i make directorys how do i get it to share a directory? are there any serveces or ports i should open in the firewall on it other than NFS, SMB, and mayby SSH or telnet.
also considering doing a dual boot on it probly a command line based version for server and a GUI based one to use to test drive and other hardware. i asume this is posible, but anything special i need to consider when doing this other than 2 partions? also can i then make it so that when the system boots up and nothing is done on the local console it will go into server OS mode?
 

Thread Starter

electronis whiz

Joined Jul 29, 2010
512
i have ubuntu, but felt like trying something else. cent OS came up and i always thought about rying that. i want to lean more about linux, had class on it and still have the book, but it's still trying to get used to linux. figured this would be a good way to. it may be a bit harder, but think it's worth it.
 

Thread Starter

electronis whiz

Joined Jul 29, 2010
512
think i'm just going to go with the GUI ver of centos. i don't care for ubuntu much. compared to open suse, fedora, etc it lacks alot of stuff that could come in handy. i'm running into trouble with centos thouh because of a graphics driver ( open suse also did this). i'm trying centos 5.8 boots fine, then starts loading drivers gets to vidio goes 1 line down then blanks out. looked through 15+ google pages for a driver and their all for windows. is there any way i can just use genaric drivers and bypass it loading a driver? or is there some universal one that works. the specs for the vidio controler are cirus logic cl-gd54m30(-1-ac-a) i don't think the part in paretheses maters.
 

Thread Starter

electronis whiz

Joined Jul 29, 2010
512
i don't see alot of options with centos. when i tryed open suse i had choice of kernal vesa or text. was in vesa and had the isue. if i neet to install by text to bypass this that would be ok, but i don't relly want a command line kernal. also if i bypass it not sure what would happen later when going to GUI.
 

tinamishra

Joined Dec 1, 2012
39
Individually I would use a linux systemunix, probably Gentoo or Debian, and you won't be using a visual front side end so that will keep more energy start for everything else.

You could try out FreeBSD, I have no actual encounter with it but a variety of buddies have used it on reduced operated devices particularly to run an RTCW hosting server and didn't seem to have many issues with it.

I would still trim more toward a linux systemunix because of its bigger, more engaged growth group.
 

Thread Starter

electronis whiz

Joined Jul 29, 2010
512
i got it to install centOS had to use a PCI card. had configured to be server, then couldn't ping it the next time i turned on. conected with KVM switch and had a grub command line screen. so apears something got corupted. figured if it didn't like the integrated video card there is probly another driver isue. server is ment for solaris or windows anyways so just threw on server 2000 and acaly installed this time. and i don't have to activate it. just have to do alot of updates on it, but alredy have on a external drive so not a big deal. actaly found centos to be farly confusing to figure out. the way the hard drives have to be configured, then figuring out how to make sambe worke with the disks. think till i get more experince with linux i't probly best i stick with just messing with virtual systems. thanks for helping though.
figured would be ok with linux if solaris worked on it originaly, but person i got it from thought was solaris, but didn't seem real sure about that.
 
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