Re: [PLUG] Tried of Windows...

["Paul L. Snyder" <plsnyder@drexel.edu>]

On Wed, 22 Aug 2012, Grabowy, Chris wrote:
 
> So my questions are....which version of Linux for a simple file server?
> Any gotchas?  Any thoughts?  I'll take any advice.  I want to make this
> weekend project go smoothly as possible and solve this silly problem once
> and for all.  Ideally, I just want to install Linux over Windows and then
> reconfigure the XBMCs.

Just about any well-supported Linux distro will work just fine for a simple
file-server.  Ubuntu currently has a very large install base, so
you'll find it easy to find help and support.  Ubuntu Server would be a
reasonable choice.  You could also take a look at something like the
FreeBSD-based FreeNAS (which is designed specifically as a file server
platform), but it's probably a bit more complicated if you just want to get
something up and running fast.

  http://www.ubuntu.com/download/server

When you say "install Linux over Windows", do you mean into the same
partition?  Since you've said that your partitions are NTFS, that's probably
not the best idea.  I've had no problems mounting NTFS partitions under
current versions of Linux, but I'd suspect it would be a pretty
unfortunate choice to try use one as a boot or root partition.

If you can't easily reformat to ext4, you can try shrinking the NTFS
partition using a tool like GParted.  Read up on the tips before you try.
I have done this successfully in the past, though usually on a
factory-install of Windows.

   http://gparted.sourceforge.net/faq.php

Apart from repartitioning, current Linux distros tend to be very easy to
install these days.  Once you've got it up and running, you'll just need
to configure Samba to serve up your media files, and you should be off and
running.

Paul
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