Linuces are being deployed as production servers in many companies. It is a powerful and reliable solution (although, IMVHO, probably not as secure and robust as OpenBSD or FreeBSD, depending on the role). However, if you own a consumer-grade rig, and are running a small home LAN, there is probably no better solution.
Linux will support most hardware you throw at it (sometimes even better than Windows XP), and will be able to take full advantage of newer technologies. It is also quite secure, and there are many native applications for you to create most any setup imaginable.
My home LAN consists of two laptops (one Windows, and one Linux) connecting to a wireless AP, which acts as a router. The WL AP is hooked to the desktop box running Arch Linux. The Arch box is then connected to the ADSL modem.
The setup looks like this:
[modem]==cat5==[desktop]==cat5==[wl/ap]))) ((([laptop]
The desktop system will be used to play media files, and also serve as a firewall system (preventing hackers from entering the LAN), a caching proxy, file server (our main storage is 400G SATAII hard drive which contains most of our important files and also serves as a backup storage), web server (for me to test my projects, and a family website for access from within LAN, for now), database server (both when working and when testing, so I need remote access from within the LAN), and print server.
Here's the specs for the desktop:
- Intel Core2Due E6550 CPU
- 2G RAM
- 160G and 400G hard drives
- Gigabyte GA-P35-SL3 mother board
- ATI Radeon HD 2400XT graphics adapter
- Samsung SyncMaster 940N monitor
- HP 1010 b/w laser printer
- two network interfaces
The wireless router/ap is a TP-LINK WR542G, and the ADSL modem is a Huawei MT822.
Installing Arch Linux
To get started I reconfigured my LAN so that the WL router is connected straight to the modem, and I hooked my desktop box to the router (it has LAN ports as well) using a normal CAT5. This way, the two laptops can access the Internet while I'm setting up the gateway. Of course, that's not a very bright solution if you're doing something mission critical, but in this case, it's acceptable. The Windows laptop is properly firewalled by its own personal firewall, and my Linux laptop is not accepting any incoming connections.
I downloaded the 2008.04 RC ISO from one of the FTP mirrors. Note that, as of this writing, the new 2008.05 is still not released, so if you want the RC ISO, you have to dig through the mirrors. The FTP install was smooth and I had the base system up in some 40 minutes.
The first thing I wanted up was the graphical desktop and some multimedia software. I've planned on installing GNOME this time because it is lighter (smaller download) and because, unlike KDEmod, it is installed from the official repositories, so it's far less likely to break when packages in the repos get updated breaking dependencies.
The X was up in very little time, but it failed to detect the correct parameters for my monitor (the hsync and vrefresh were off). So I manually configured it and then installed GNOME from the repo. I also didn't install the whole "gnome" group but only packages I knew I needed. If I was more experienced at this, I'd probably have thrown away a lot more, but this time only gnome-media and epiphany packages were excepted.
After GNOME, just the regular stuff: flash plugin, FireFox, Exaile media player, Totem DVD/video player, codecs, and that's about it. Just some regular stuff to keep the family happy. ;)
In the following parts, I'll deal with more serious stuff: rewiring the wireless router to the gateway and setting up shorewall, setting up SSH for passwordless access, etc.
