How to build a low cost Linux Home Server

Introduction

Do I need a home server you ask?
Do any of the situations below sound familiar?

• You have 2 or more computers at home with files fragmented between them and multiple copies of multiple files...
  Click here to read the entire guide

supreme example of how a guide should be built.

eventhough i could not understand every bit of it.

still very much informative.

kudos

ps :

lol, looks like images were blocked in my office. My bad, i'll check it at home.
Hey @superczar u didn't answer my 2nd question: is it possible to make normal http downloads using this setup? I guess if i can access the server thru Vnc and can open a web browser, then i can surf and download normal http files. But before opening the browser, i'll have to start the GUI mode of the server.

@montylee ,i guess you can use curl if you know the exact thing that you want to download, without the GUI.

@superczar, excellent guide will come in handy when i try it out this weekend. Thanks mate

Awesome write up WoW that's a guide that will attract people towards Tux.. Reps added Hats off; a gr8 guide

no need for curl

the torrentflux mod (torrentflux-b4rt) that we used in the guide handles http downloads directly through the browser gui using wget

see the URL for the File to wget: section in the torrentflux screeshot for details

A really great guide, reps for this. I am very impressed with this guide it covers a lot of valuable info.I am now seriously thinking about committing some older hardware parts to build this.

One tiny little addition of you don't mind
Since quite a few people are using dd-wrt, you can set the dynamic ip settings there without the need for additional software. I have this setup myself as I am using Linux to access my system for outside... but not as a dedicated server. Go to Setup tab and then DDNS tab.

thanks for the tip
I myself am using dd-wrt so let me go do it without any further ado

killah

yup that's ok but i would have liked a complete browser so that i can surf the internet on it and download anything. In the current setup i wd have to find the exact URL of th file on another pc and then use that URL on this setup. Still, this setup completely rocks!
BTW, i have an old P-3, 128MB SDRAM and 20GB HDD lying waste. I can try this stuff on that machine.

Awesome....nice n brief.......lol...the 1st 4 points " familiar situations "...outta those 4...me actually have the 2 cases ....

A server of the sorts wud be gr8....me taking the print out too....but will have to catch hold of Linux first...havent used it yet...will start with this project after exams for sure

Insane work SC! Will surely give this a try, its simply amazing !

lol, you can always use any browser on the machine that is running this server as long as you intend to use this machine as a desktop

the idea here was to run this as a stanadlone server and not as a desktop...having said that, you can always use this machine as a server + desktop as long as you do not disable the gui environment (/etc/init.d/kdm stop)

yup u hit the nail on the head

superb guide,u must hav lotsa free time

p.s. i wonder whats the minimum cost one wud incur to build this minus the hdds

Very Detailed Guide

Repped.

Also added it to my blog with a link to this post , hope you dont mind.