Want to run a server on linux

I have been using ubuntu for a while now.

I want to run a small lan / experimental web server on linux. Which dist. should I go for.

I have very little experience with linux. So i will need a Easy GUI dist. Stability is not a big issue as its just experimental. I would have used ubuntu but i am having connectivity issues. My ISP has a dialer for red hat so imm guessing other RH based dist like fedora will not have the same connectivity problems.

The dist. also must use grub as a bootloader and i want to install this over my ubuntu installation in the same HDD space.

Should I go for fedora? Or some other dist.?

Thanks.

Hmm, your dialer .. would be for RH 9 .. or worse, 7. No hope there.

All you'd ever need to do what you want to on Ubuntu is ..

Code:

sudo apt-get install apache2

And optionally, PHP5, MySQL.

What's your ISP? We can help you fix it up on Ubuntu. Cause there isn't any network problem that is distro specific unless its hardware.

Get XAMPP and install it.

It' here, along with the tut required to install/ uninstall and configure it.

@ QWERTY MANIac: It is a hardware problem. The switch is a Dlink one which has some known issues and the ISP refuses to change it.
But my ISP assures me they run RH and it works fine on their comps.
@Aditya i need a distrio.

I wont suggest to go for a different distro, but starting up servers and configuring em is a piece of cake in fedora. Also comparing FC5 (Fedora Core 5) and Ubuntu 6.10, there's a terrible file permission system in Ubuntu 6.10. I wud prefer Fedora over Ubuntu for server!

Get FC7...

distro doesnt matters much.
the servers work almost similarly.
if u need to set up a webserver then aditya already gave u the answer(set up XMAPP).

Thanks for the replies. Ill download Fedora 7.

the httpd package (Apache) is the server in Fedora 6. Don't know about 7.

httpd is usually automatically installed if you don't alter the options during setup.

DON'T CHOOSE SERVER AS IT WILL CLEAR YOUR FULL HARDDISK AND INSTALL COMMAND LINE LINUX. YOU WANTED GUI.

@shaunak

If you still want to go for a different distro and are just trying it out for learning purpose then check this out.

They are live CDs specially designed to perform the work of a server.

M

Check out CentOS if primary purpose is a server.
It is derived from RHEL and available for free.

RHEL(fedora,rhel clones) offers better GUI management tools for setting servers up.

centos or whitebox ,are the best free alternative to RHEL for server.
and to setup LAMP server in centos, is very easy just select server installation while installing and in will be installed, only for mysql server will not installed, so for it you can expand mysql pacakge, and install it
you can install through yum also