I am currently surfing on a cheap home-built rig running XP and I don't have any complaints. I have always used windows and it works but I would like to give Linux a try. I have read up a little on the OS and I like what I see, compatiblity of hardware and applications concerns me a little but the security and resistance to virus attacks looks very good. My next rig is going to ba a media storage box for DVD and CD data so I can get all the DVD and CD cases out of my living room and replace them with a computer. With it intended simply to stream media to my TV, stereo and a client box in the garage and being the "basket" that I put all my "eggs" in it seems the perfect candidate for my first Linux rig.
It will be running an AMD Athlon 64 and in it's final form three RAID arrays; a two-drive RAID 1 and two four-drive RAID 5s.I need it to be able to store video and audio files and support networking to at least one client computer.
Linux users, in your opinions, which maker would be my best bet for a stable, user freindly OS with a definate future for what I am trying to do? I am looking at both SUSE and RED HAT. I am going to get a retail version not freeware, coming from a windows background Linux prices look like a steal even for the full-featured products. Also, I am unfamiliar with the apps that Linux uses for it's files, what are the equivalents of MPEG and WMA files in the Linux universe so I can be sure to look for them in the OS offerings.
I have so far just bought the MOBO(ASUS K8N-E), CPU(Athlon 64 3400+) and memory(1GB Crucial PC3200), are there any hardware compatibilty concerns I need to keep in mind when getting my optical drives, video card and RAID cards?
Will my client box need to run Linux as well or will an XP system network effectively with a Linux one. I will build the client box later so I can build it specifically with this in mind if I have to do certain things to get it to work.
Thank you.
Linux users, help out a windows user thinking about trying Linux
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themadscientist
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Why buy retail? SUSE and RedHat are both OK, but for the cost of two or three cds. You can have a fully working linux distro that has everything you need to get up and runnning.
As far as streaming media check out MythTV http://www.mythtv.org/
Slackware is a great distro that I've used in the past.
BTW KDE == better than Gnome.
File types are almost always universal, maybe not WMA since it's a propritery container.
As far as applications go check out the WINE or WINEX projects.
As far as Word Powerpoint type applications, there's Suns StarOffice and OpenOffice.
The only annoying thing about linux is compiling binaries and keeping them up to date. You might want to check out Fedora or Debian since they both have some sort of automated update service.
As far as streaming media check out MythTV http://www.mythtv.org/
Slackware is a great distro that I've used in the past.
BTW KDE == better than Gnome.
File types are almost always universal, maybe not WMA since it's a propritery container.
As far as applications go check out the WINE or WINEX projects.
As far as Word Powerpoint type applications, there's Suns StarOffice and OpenOffice.
The only annoying thing about linux is compiling binaries and keeping them up to date. You might want to check out Fedora or Debian since they both have some sort of automated update service.
Re: Linux users, help out a windows user t ... (themadscientist)
Good to see some converts from the dark side, hehe. :-)
As far as a choice in distribution is concerned, it probably doesn't matter too much what you choose. My experience here is somewhat limited, as the last "real" distribution I used was Red Hat 7.3 (I've been sort of rolling my own based off that ever since, updating/compiling everything myself), but they are all pretty much the same anymore; as far as I know, Red Hat doesn't exactly have a "client" distribution anymore, as they've gone on to focus on their Enterprise Server products, which are expensive due solely to their service contract nonsense, heh. ;-) SuSE isn't bad, being owned by Novell anymore, and it is a solid product. Debian, Gentoo, et cetra are all also good options, but I would highly recommend you give Fedora a try; it is the open source, free off shoot of Red Hat. And as it sounds like you're setting up a server of sorts, the choice of file system can become important, and for your purposes, SGI's XFS (been in the kernel since well before the release of 2.6) is great; it's a journaling file system, so no long extended file system checks when the power goes out, though I'd highly recommend you UPS this box, and it's known for its ability to handle large files, and is "tried and true", so to speak. Additionally, you wouldn't need to use Linux on the client box either, as Linux supports a piece of software called Samba that makes a UNIX/Linux server look almost identical to a Windows NT domain server, offering all the features up to and including domain logons to Windows clients, including XP machines.
As far as media files go, Linux and UNIX in general have no problems with all sorts of MPEG files; I believe Linux is capable of WMA/WMV playback anymore, though I'm not positive. I use Linux in the role of server much more than I do in the role of a client, heh, a PowerBook G4 with OS X does that part for me. Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions . . . I'll try my best to answer them.
As far as a choice in distribution is concerned, it probably doesn't matter too much what you choose. My experience here is somewhat limited, as the last "real" distribution I used was Red Hat 7.3 (I've been sort of rolling my own based off that ever since, updating/compiling everything myself), but they are all pretty much the same anymore; as far as I know, Red Hat doesn't exactly have a "client" distribution anymore, as they've gone on to focus on their Enterprise Server products, which are expensive due solely to their service contract nonsense, heh. ;-) SuSE isn't bad, being owned by Novell anymore, and it is a solid product. Debian, Gentoo, et cetra are all also good options, but I would highly recommend you give Fedora a try; it is the open source, free off shoot of Red Hat. And as it sounds like you're setting up a server of sorts, the choice of file system can become important, and for your purposes, SGI's XFS (been in the kernel since well before the release of 2.6) is great; it's a journaling file system, so no long extended file system checks when the power goes out, though I'd highly recommend you UPS this box, and it's known for its ability to handle large files, and is "tried and true", so to speak. Additionally, you wouldn't need to use Linux on the client box either, as Linux supports a piece of software called Samba that makes a UNIX/Linux server look almost identical to a Windows NT domain server, offering all the features up to and including domain logons to Windows clients, including XP machines.
As far as media files go, Linux and UNIX in general have no problems with all sorts of MPEG files; I believe Linux is capable of WMA/WMV playback anymore, though I'm not positive. I use Linux in the role of server much more than I do in the role of a client, heh, a PowerBook G4 with OS X does that part for me. Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions . . . I'll try my best to answer them.