So, you’ve got a vintage computer, and you don’t know what to do by using it. Sure, it can’t play new games, maybe can’t run technology software, don’t fret, it’s not totally worthless. Converting your old computer straight into your house data server opens a variety of possibilities, and a range of new actions with your computer(s) plus the network.

So, how can you take action? Well, if it’s already setup for Windows Networking, you’ve got the basic principles setup for a Windows file server, and will simply use where you live network for transfering/working with files, however, this article is gonig to show the more potent, plus much more powerful way: creating a Linux file server.

Step one would be to select a Linux distro, DistroWatch.com lists typically the most popular distributions, and reviews an array of distributions, we’re gonna utilize Ubuntu [5.10] operating-system, which has a server installation, simply because it’s the operating system this author purposes of his desktop, and is quickly becoming the most famous distribution around.

Your old computer likely has enough memory, and also a powerful enough CPU to perform Ubuntu, however, should you decide to work with this server like a major central file server, it’s going to likely require a new hard-drive. You can cope with that all on your own.

Whenever you insert the Ubuntu CD, and boot to it, rather than just pressing [enter] with the boot screen, type ’server’ then press enter - this may prevent it from installing some of the *-desktop packages, and not creating any unneeded applications. Another option is linux file server.

After following the steps of installation, you’ll be prompted having a logon screen - enter the details you provided during installation, and you’re simply inside your brand new Linux system. From here, that you can do sets from investigate web, to put together laptop computer for a number of networking tasks, to try out a variety of Linux-based games.

Package management is really a critical part of owning a Linux system, luckily Ubuntu is sold with two distinct and useful tools to help you inside your package managing. Aptitude [which, is really only a UI for apt-get] and apt-get.

A package called “samba” will help you to build proper networking between Linux and Windows computers (at the least, we hope you’ve got your networking issues sorted out). Running “sudo apt-get install samba” as part of your new command line will state the apt-get application to put in the samba package, and set it up with default settings.

Once samba is installed, you’ll want to put it together to share with you certain files/directories, and place them on your own network - samba networking can be a massive topic of it’s own, and way beyond the scope of the article, however, running “man samba” provides you with the samba manual file, which lists off a series of other manuals to consider. Google’s always helpful too. :)

Now, after you have networking and samba setup, you are able to transfer files between Windows and Linux through Network Neighborhood/smbclient - you’ve now got a fundamental data server setup. Yet another easy meal, wasn’t it?

For many who desire to go further, Pure-FTPd will assist you to set up a totally featured FTP (file transfer protocol) server with this box, which make use of gain access to your files remotely from any computer setup having an FTP client (Windows Explorer has one built in!), creating an Apache based web-server is pretty simple with Ubuntu’s apt-get packages, and OpenSSH allows an individual to remotely log in to the Linux shell from any computer equipped with an SSH client.

A small advancement to the system could let you create Bash scripts along with cron would allow you to build scripts which immediately backup files every X days, or scripts to complete certain processing to files at times - the options are effectively endless.

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