Operatin System for Server

[SRB442]

Hi All,
I am building a server to keep my website on and would like to know which operating system would work best for this. I have 4 other machines 2 with xp home and 2 with 98se on this network. The friend that is helping on this want to use windows server 2000. Does XP pro do the same things?. Someday I hope to answer questions instead of asking all the time. Thanks Steve

 

[ronin1967]

You could build the server with all the OS's you mentioned(98SE, XP Home or XP Pro). The XP OS's have better service and administrative tools, but for your setup there wouldn't be a big difference between using XP Home or Pro or even 98SE. Use which ever one you are most comfotrable with. I assume you are going to use FAT32 instead of NTFS so it wouldn't really matter.

 

[Rakk]

Depends on your hardware really - I assume you're building something relatively contemporary (1Ghz+) in which case your friend's suggestion of Win2k server would do fine. XP Pro is also good but if the machine is going to be a dedicated server then you'll want to really chop a lot of the services out to reduce memory consumption. Check out http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm for some very useful info on WinXP services and how to optimise them. Black Viper also has a good page on Win2000 services if you decide to go that route.

 

[SRB442]

Thanks for the information so far. This is a 1.2 PIII,512 ram and will be running 2 hard drives in raid 1 (mirror) and will be a dedicated to server only possibly wireless to my barricade. Steve

 

[CyberFed]

I have always been a fan of 2k pro for servers

 

[SRB442]

So from what I have read so far (and I am no expert) Just about any newer windows operating system would work. I will probably use 2000 server or xp pro. This stuff is all new to me. I am one of those guys who knows just enough to get myself in trouble. I apprecate all the help I find here. Thanks Steve

 

[oops]

If it's a personal web site or not much traffic, then anything can do. If it's a really heavy load web site, then you should think about Win2K Server, or maybe Linux.

 

[Oni]

If it's just a personal server, then I'd go Win2k Server. If you need something a little more robust, look into FreeBSD, and do a lot of reading

 

[zachj]

If I were you, and my site were a personal site that didn't recieve a large amount of traffic (ie Google or something like that), I would go for whatever's cheapest. Pretty much anything will serve your needs if it's a personal site. If it's a very high load server, I would go 2k, XP Pro, or 2kServer (but isn't the latter rather expensive?)

Ultimately, though, I think your bestest choice is Linux. It's free (big darn plus), industrial strength, won't crash or need to be restarted every few days, it's highly configurable, it's free, everything you need is already on the disk, it's got plenty o' documentation, and it's free . . .

But I guess it's really just up to you, so pick a winner

Z

 

[mbentley]

i would say that on a lower budget, just stick with win2k pro or winxp home/pro. if you have a larger budget, go with win2k server. just my opinion.

 

[SRB442]

Thanks for all the great information. This is a personal web site that probably won't get a lot of hits. I share a hobby (drag racing and show cars) with a lot of friends and want to have videos, picture albums and articles available I would guess less than 25 hits a day. I will go with XP pro or Server 2000. Thanks Steve

 

[BigAir]

I use 2000 Adv Server for my rig, and it is rock stable. It has not had down time in 2 years on a dual PII 400 rig. You are talking considerable money though and I do agree that XP or standard 2000 would be fine for your operation.

 

[SRB442]

Got W2k advance server installed last night and my friend gave me some pointers on it but it looks a lot different than xp. This will take a while to get use to. Everthing installed without a hitch. running software raid 1 and have two hard disks mirroring foir data protection. Ialso will have VNC installed. I have a lot of learning to do. The one thing my friend told me was do not touch the security settings as I guess you can lock yourself out quite easy. Steve

 

[Fink]

I still use NT4, as do a lot other commercial sites. Stable, runs great on older hardware. A bit archaic, but you can find legitamate copies in used hardware stores since a lot of older hardware is being decomissioned.

I got a copy of NT4 SP6a Server for about $50 with ten client licenses.

 

[Oni]

The one thing my friend told me was do not touch the security settings as I guess you can lock yourself out quite easy.

Actually, those are about the first things you wanna play with. Get a book and read up on securing your box. Read about file/folder permissions, and how to set them up right.

 

[SRB442]

Thanks for tip ONI. My friend set up the security I needed to secure the box. He just wanted to for warn me if I decided to change anything. He does server work for a living so I let him decide what settings to use. Now onto web page design 101.
Steve

 

[petreza]

..on a different topis...

make sure you do backups regulary