OS for Server

Status
Not open for further replies.
A

Anish

Forerunner
Hey guys as most of you already know my Home Server is up and running. Now I was on Windows XP SP2 all this while which was doing all the needed tasks properly, but as usual there were stupid incompatibilities and driver issues and now its started acting up a lot.

http://www.techenclave.com/show-off/chrome-the-server-118370.html

So I'm basically looking for a change. I'm open to Linux as well.

Here are what my primary tasks are and note, *alll* of them need to be satisfied, otherwise I can't shift.

1. HTPC [Must play 1080p via the Mobo's onboard HDMI and Audio through SPDIF (Its a 740G based board)]

2. Print / Scan Server Must be able to share my HP All-in-One over Ethernet for Printing and Scanning.

3. TorrentBox Should have excellent torrent support.

4. Remote Access Since the machines is going to be headless, it must have a remote access app as well.

Now here comes the catch. I all these features to work over multiple platforms, i.e.

1. Desktop - Vista x64 SP1
2. Laptop - OSX Leopard 10.5.4 + Windows XP SP3
3. Netbook - OSX Leopard 10.5.4 + Windows XP SP3

Please, please help me out!

Thanks!
 
You can use any linux distribution. Things to watch out for:-

1. How well is your chipset supported? Does it have native driver support?

2. How well is your printer supported?

Everything else like file-sharing, torrentbox and remote access is very well supported under linux and will work in sync with windows/mac os X computers.
 
1. HTPC [Must play 1080p via the Mobo's onboard HDMI and Audio through SPDIF (Its a 740G based board)]
Click to expand...

It ceases to be a server if it has to do this..

It would have been very easy to recommed *nix but because of 1..

Unfortunately, you don't have any other choice but *nix even though Linux is still iffy when it comes to handling media properly

Reason:

Setting up hacked OS X is a pain

With XP, you'll be forced to use FAT32 since NTFS doesnt play nice with any other OS (Your lappies will be only able to read the files on the server and won't be able to write to it)

but FAT32 will be a problem if you intend to keep HD flicks on the server (which i assume you do)
 
err..let me get this right - you're having driver issues and incompatibilities with Xp, and and thinking that linux would solve your problems? :p That's funny :ohyeah:
 
^^have you tried any latest distro with Kernel .27 ? Its just great do give it a try. .Say Mandriva 2009.0 or Ubuntu 8.10 :)
 
Well, I believe OSX has a CIFS/SMB client... so it can connect to Windows shares. Where does NTFS come in from? The laptops aren't physically connected to the server's disk (unless he has a SAN in which case he has the most extreme HTPC setup I've ever seen).
 
It's not abt just connecting to the share, (which he can simply do by connecting to the shared drives on the server as samba shares.)

He can read from the server but cannot transfer files from the client machines onto the server

(Because he cannot use FAT32 coz of the file size limitation, and NTFS is, well, NTFS)
 
Hmm, the I guess a NTFS drive when on a windows machine accessed as a samba share can be written to as well without any stupid NTFS write hacks needed..

LOL, my bad then..

PS

Solaris 10 is the best for servers.
Click to expand...

I am speechless
 
^^Lol, your idea of a server is confusing. I wonder how my windows box is able to write emails that are stored as files on an ext3 FS on google's servers.

The whole point of network protocols is to prevent these problems :)
 
KingKrool said:
^^Lol, your idea of a server is confusing. I wonder how my windows box is able to write emails that are stored as files on an ext3 FS on google's servers.

The whole point of network protocols is to prevent these problems :)
Click to expand...

Eh, you aren't directly accessing google's FS. Network protocols are there to standardize network transmission not direct I/O.

Superczar's concerns are not unfounded, reading/writing directly to NTFS via non-windows boxen requires certain hacks. But those hacks are already in place and work without issue(mostly). Read NTFS-3G: Stable Read/Write NTFS Driver.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom