Hi mfillpot,

Thank you for your valuable advise and clear my confusion.

Thank you very much :)

Hi,

Thank you for your advise.

When you mentioned that those Server functions can be addon to every distro, why are there still some distros having Desktop & Server differentiation?

By not confusing "newbies" like myself, why not they just provide the base OS and allow users to addon/install those features when require?
Do they provide Server distro because for the convenient of user so that users do not need to install these server features individually?

Eg; In windows based, Server OS comes with Active Directory, DNS, DHCP etc which the Desktop OS (Win XP/Win 7) are not capable to addon these features. At least users can easily differentiate which OS to choose and use.

Regards

Hi All,

Can anyone advise me can the following be achieve?

I want to use a free Linux say Mandriva Free 2010 Spring and integrate with BIND, Apache, MySQL etc to make it a Server.
The function of this Server inlcudes :

1. DNS Server
2. FTP Server
3. VPN Server
4. DHCP Server
5. RAID 0,1 or 5.
6. WEB Server
7. Mail Server (Including Webmail)
8. RAS server
9. Firewall

I understand that combining all Server function into 1 box may not be practical, however I just want to know whether can this be done?

Is Mandriva Free 2010 Spring the right Linux OS to be use for this case?

Any recommendation on which application to be used for each Server function above?

Thanks

Hi All,

Thanks for all for the advice. I think I will have to use Ubuntu and play with it for now.

Once again, a million thanks to your precious advice.

Cheers :)

Alvyn

Hi

I am more proficient in Windows based, however when come to Linux, I am totally confused.

In order to build a low cost or "free" Linux Server equipped with DNS, DHCP, Firewall, VPN Server, RAID Capable, Dynamic DNS, Remote Access, WEB etc..

What should I use? And how and where to start from as in the selecting the appropriate applications.

Can I say, download a free Kernel such as Mandriva Free 2010 and addon other apps like Apache for WEB, or BIND for DNS and integrate them together to function like a Server?

Hope you can enlightened me on this.

Thanks

Alvyn