Distro recommendations

[phunni]

I have an old PC acting as a server for my home LAN

 

It shares out the printer and runs a firewall (firestarter) which shares the internet connetion.

 

At present, I am running mandrake 9.1 as the distro, but I'd like to change this to something a bit more lightweight - trying to do updates is too much for this machine (P100 with 32MB RAM) so I can't keep up with security updates.

 

What I need is a distro that:

 

1) Is easy to install and configure - ideally I'd like to get this done so quickly that my wife doesn't even know I've done it. She doesn't mind me tweaking things as long as they don't break her internet connect/printer connection. I'd like her to be unaffected - as far as she knows anyway

 

2) easy to update

 

3) has to run on an old machine - I would have used arch, but this is not an i686 machine...

 

I looked on distrowatch for firewall distros - but I'm not convinced I'll be able to easily configure the printer on most of them - although I could well be wrong in this respect.

 

Opinions please!

[fuzzylizard]

For just the firewall, I would suggest Smothwall GPL. It is incredibley easy to install and get up and running.

 

For both a firewall and a print server, I would probably recommend Slackware -- although, it might be a little bit of a task to install and get running -- or you could go with SME Server. It supposedly handles both the firewall duties and the server duties.

 

I tried looking for a link to this product, but it seems it may have disappeared. Here is an article on it thoug with some links

 

http://www.linux-mag.com/2001-12/pr_sme_01.html

[jlc]

Look into Slack or even Vector-Linux 4.0 for older hardware. I'm playing around with VL4.0 on my laptop, and it is fast (I know, I know people are going to yell about me saying a distro is fast, deal with it) ;) and install about 650MB full install, very minimal. The download doesn't come with KDE or Gnome, but those are easy to get, Not that you need those for a server anyway. Comes with Fluxbox(idesk) included, IceWM and some other light waits. It is supposed to run nice on older hardware, but can't confirm that.

 

Check it out.

 

http://www.vectorlinux.com/

 

Here's a couple of reviews for it.

 

http://www.madpenguin.org/modules.php?op=m...article&sid=583

 

http://www.pcburn.com/mod.php?mod=userpage...1210&page_id=16

 

Check it out, slack is very easy to configure when you know "vi"

:lol:

[jlc]

HEre's some features to look at too w/ VL

 

http://vectorlinux.com/mod.php?mod=userpag...enu=9&page_id=2

 

Version 4.0

 

 

   * Kernel version 2.4.22 available in ide or scsi configurations.

   * Glibc-2.3.1

   * Available as a text console system or with optional XFree GUI

   * XFree-4.3.0 is the default X system.

   * New graphical package manager has been added, vecpkg.

 

   * Easy on your system resources, should run fine with a minimum of 32mb of ram

   * Only reguires 625 megs of disk space for full install (but you should have more available for additional programs and swap space)

   * Laptop support including pcmcia and apm.

   * Usb support with hotplugging

 

   * Most available Linux hardware drivers are included.

 

 

     DESKTOP FEATURES

 

   * XFCE, Fluxbox and ICEwm window managers with antialias font support. More available on the deluxe CD.

   * KDE-3.1.4 and dropline-gnome is available on the deluxe CD version.

   * Internet ready with Firebird, Dillo, Gaim, Xchat and more. Mozilla, Mplayer, flash, acrobat reader and java all available on the deluxe CD.

   * Abiword a stand alone full featured word processor that imports exports MS word style documents. OpenOffice available on the deluxe CD.

   * Xview and GQview for viewing, manipulating and editing graphics files

   * The Gimp a very sophisticated image creation program available on the deluxe CD

   * XMMS to play most music formats including CD's

   * A full compliment of GUI programs to handle email, file management, text editing, sound manipulation, file compression, desktop themes and more.

 

 

 

     CONSOLE FEATURES

 

   * Full development suite with most common libraries, compilers and related tools.

     Gcc updated to version 3.2.2.

 

   * fully functional ftp server based on proFTPD

 

   * PPP setup wizard for easy connection to the net via your modem. Both pppsetup and wvdial available. Update gkdial is now available also.

   * VI style text editors, mutt for email, lynx text web browsing, Midnight Commander file manager, ncftp, telnet, ping, finger and all the basic networking applications and daemons.

   * Vim, apache, mysql, Emacs, samba, screen all available on the deluxe CD version.

   * Added security with a built in firewall, port sentry, openssl and openssh..

   * Enhanced USB support with hotplugging.

   * The default file manager (midnight commander) will install uninstall all software packages including rpms, slps, debs, and tgz.

 

As you can see, it has a "firewall" included too!

 

Oh yeah, Printer setup in vasm(vector gui tool) is for cups

[DragonMage]

Well.. pretty much all linux distro has built in firewall in the kernel... that's why it is so secure :)

 

But I agree.. Vector seems to be the best lightweight distro for a server. It even have GUI if you need it. Besides.. if you need shorewall scripts, you can always download shorewall separately.

 

Although about easy to update.. that's kind of iffy with slackware based distro. Then again, I haven't touched slackware ever since the old 100 floppies days After slackware burned my then state of the art 17 inch monitor in 1996 when setting up X, I kind of have a semi-hatred toward slackware. So I may be biased :P

[phunni]

How easy is it to configure networking? Specifically - two network cards...?

[phunni]

After slackware burned my then state of the art 17 inch monitor in 1996 when setting up X, I kind of have a semi-hatred toward slackware. So I may be biased :P

 

Ha ha - that doesn't happen now though ha ha - does it?

[jlc]

NETWORK: On my laptop I have a PCMICA & a dock both configured by slack, but doing it manually wouldn't be a problem either.

 

UPDATE: One word, "SWARET", my Slackware 9.1 box is alway's current. Haven't checked into how much you can use swaret w/ VL-4.0 since it is mainly based on Slack 9.0 and not current, but I didn't notice in "vasm" or what ever it was that swaret was an app you can install from it. Security and updates like that shouldn't be a problem at all with either there tool or swaret.

[jlc]

After slackware burned my then state of the art 17 inch monitor in 1996 when setting up X, I kind of have a semi-hatred toward slackware. So I may be biased :P

 

Ha ha - that doesn't happen now though ha ha - does it?

 

Nope, it should "mostly" detect your stuff, but knowing your freq's and what not is alway's a good idea. :lol:

[Qchem]

I think either Slackware or Debian might be good in this case - haven't tried vector so I can't comment. Although not ideal in your current situation - ie getting up and running quickly, LFS also sounds ideal for this sort of task.

[jlc]

I think either Slackware or Debian might be good in this case - haven't tried vector so I can't comment.  Although not ideal in your current situation - ie getting up and running quickly, LFS also sounds ideal for this sort of task.

Although not ideal in your current situation - ie getting up and running quickly, LFS also sounds ideal for this sort of task.

 

This was a joke right? Sounds like you mixed the distro's up?

[alaa]

what wrong with Mandrake??

juest remove all packages you don't need.

keep urpmi.

if you prefer gui keep XFree86 and a lightweight window manager (fluxbox, pekwm, something like that) and the drakxtools.

 

make sure only services you need are running

 

update your machine using

urpmi.update update_source
urpmi --update --autoselect

 

I have MDK 9.1 running on an old Toshiba laptop with only 32 MB of ram, I use it as a desktop and it works fine as long as I'm only running lightweight packages that I know I need.

 

cheers,

Alaa

[phunni]

Mandrake is just far too slow at the moment. Plus the machine can't handle updates unless I do them two or three packages at a time.

 

Since this server has been running for a while now - this would take far too long

[sarah31]

just so you know i am working on the arch linux i586 port. it is still a month or two away but it is coming.

[Guest vande198]

I'd advocate ArchLinux too, once the i586 port comes out. Arch is very fast and it's packaging system is easily on paar with urpmi (plus it has a ports-like build system that lets you custom build your own packages). Until then, I'd try follow the advise of those who advocate Vector Linux, which performs even better on old hardware than Slack and is a bit easier to install/use (as far as I've seen). I'd go with Arch in the end though because Swaret appears to have a few issues in it.