Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Aug 7, 2005 10:57AM PDT

Dear Linux Pro,

Alright. To start off, I'm not a complete idiot here, but frankly, Linux is one field of computer software that is entirely missing in my knowedge.

I know there's been a battle between Microsoft Windows and Linux for a substancial amount of time. I know the arguments, and I also know that Linux generally makes the better server. I've never had a dedicated server, so I've never ran into this dilemma before. Windows has worked perfectly for my PC for the past decade, so I don't try to fix or change something that's not broken.

*** -> To the point, I want to start a server which will allow the public to download and upload small video files. This server will also work as my webserver. My problem is, I don't know where to start. I don't know how to make a webserver, or a fileserver. I'm willing to put the time into it. php/mySQL/http/ftp, tell me what I need to look into, and how to begin learning linux.

TIA,
serverman

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
It's quite easy
Aug 7, 2005 12:13PM PDT

Hello,

since you have decided to use linux, take some time to go through some linux distributions (Debian/Fedora Core/Red Hat/Ubuntu/Knoppix ...) and decide which one you want to use. I personally recommend Fedora Core 4, especially for beginners - because of its GUI, which should make your transition from Windows a lot more easier.

Almost all linux distributions come with a built-in web server (Apache) with PHP/MySQL support. Configuring a web server once you have a domain name (or even just a static IP address) is quite easy and there are lot of online documents to help you with that (I can help you too)

Installing Fedora Core 4 and some post-installation stuff have been given in step-by-step fashion in my website :

http://www.sgowtham.net/installation.html
http://www.sgowtham.net/pinstallation.html

I will probably post my httpd.conf file soon in my website - please do not hesitate to contact me if you need something : if not with very complex things, I can definitely help with basic set up of your webserver.

Good luck,
Gowtham

- Collapse -
reply
Aug 7, 2005 12:33PM PDT

I actually downloaded fedora a month ago for my friend (much faster speeds)... I just don't know anything about it.

How difficult is it to make an uploads page for someone to upload a small video file to my server, and for others to be able to later view it from my webserver?

I'll start doing my homework Happy
Thanks alot,
serverman

- Collapse -
Not Bad
Aug 11, 2005 8:30AM PDT

Making a server really isn't very hard. I leared the basics by going through a few faqs. Fedora is a good place to start since it is closely tied to RHEL which has great compliance and GUIs to set up apache. I do reccomend though getting CentOS a true clone of RHEL, the only things changed is the artwork(copyright Sad ).
Post back for more help.

-Simon