Another n00b, distro for file server

h8grip

Hey all, I'm Sam from one of the far corners of the world.

I'm currently in the process of building a new system and I'm now 100% I will be shifting to some form of Linux distro, basically the computer ill be a media server, streaming to about 3 - 5 locations throughout the house including my xbox 360, although I am still unsure on the CPU/Mobo combination I will be using the system will be running around 6gb of ram and 2TB of storage in RAID array(unsure which exactly at the moment)

For the time being I will be using it as the server as hopefully as well as just a general machine, internet, IM, email office duties perhaps a bit of photo editing and things like that.

One of the most appealing things to be is the level of customization Linux distros offer and although the only experience with it is the Ubuntu liveCD I'm am currently playing around on I really want to get into the whole Linux community as much as possible..

I just want to hear some opinions of recommend distros for my needs, should I be looking at a server platform or will that not be really necessary? Another thing i should mention is that it will also be used to store backup data from mine and my sisters laptops as well. Should I start off with something a little simplier? or look for a more powerful distro and throw myself in the deep end so to speak?

Thanks guys

mfillpot

I am not experienced in setting up a multimedia server, but I have heard good things about using Mythbuntu (http://www.mythbuntu.org/) as a multimedia server, with TV card capabilities. In addition since it is another Linux based distribution you should be able to set it up as an ftp, samba or secure file transfer server to use as a files server for your home network.

altNull

You need to becareful about streaming to Xbox 360. The current setup by Microsoft is that you have to use the new file sharing (a Samba hybrid) that uses Samba with Windows Media Player. I haven't played with it too much yet, but I found this - HowTo Stream Music Pictures and Movies to an Xbox 360 with Linux

As to the Distro - I recommend a redhat based distro. This would be CentOS, Fedora, or RedHat. This is because RedHat has the best database support that I have found, and there some really neat setups that not only allow you to to setup a file system, but also (using zen) vitalize an ftp server or a streaming http server on the same hardware so you can share you content with you friends via a VPN.

Consult:
Xen on CentOS
Apple's Darwin on CentOS 5.2
Installing lighthttpd with PHP5 and MySQL support on CentOS 5.4

If you don't want all that then just setup Sambas shares:
CentOS 5 Deployment Guide - Samba

h8grip

Thanks you your rep[lies, I'm a little bewildered by all the technical stuff but I guess google will be my friend for a while while I do some research, I will look towards a Redhat based OS will have a bit of a read about them and come up with one I guess

Its going to be a slow process but I guess for the time being I will just play with Ubuntu on here until my system is completed, still thinking about the hard drive stups etc thinking on maybe getting a small SSD hard drive to run the OS and a RAID array for storage or do you guys think that the RAID array along should be reasonably fast.

How is Linux for support Blu-Ray and HD contents and things like that?

Hmm... So many questions I will leave it at that for now lol