Servers 101

[Bruce Marshall]

On Friday 10 October 2008, Billie Walsh wrote:
> My better half just turned to me and asked if I thought we had a
> computer suitable for running as a server on our home network. With all
> the stuff we have around here I'm pretty sure we do but we know
> absolutely nothing about servers. It would have to be able to work on a
> mixed network [ Linux and Windows ].
>
> Can someone point me to someplace that has "Servers For Dummies 101"?

I think first you need to decide why you want a server...  i.e.  what do you 
want it to do?

I use a server as a firewall and an email fetcher (other machines POP their 
mail from it)  on a mixed network.   There's no real magic to a server for 
simple stuff...   it's just normal linux.  (mail, networking, firewall, etc)