What are my options?
I want a simple OS or application that I can install on an old PC (former server) and run it as file and print server. Nothing fancy, nothing great: Just share files and a printer.
Currently I have a home network and a Windows 2003 Active Directory server. It was a great learning experience, but it is overkill and the server is old enough now that the installation is rather flaky. I’m tired of farting with it, I just want to go with something simple and relatively single-purpose.
I’ve recently reconfigured other aspects of my home labs and network. I no longer need the WINS and DNS services that this box was providing either. Things are, in general, much simpler here now.
I’m also ready to step back from domain level security. Windows workgroup will be fine I think. Or share level passwords.
A full linux distro is not simple and relatively single-purpose, but I bet there are some tailored distros that aim for this? For instance, FreeNAS would be just about perfect if it did the print sharing aspect. Ubuntu would not be ideal. Simple. Light-weight. Focused on sharing. Samba / CIFS / whatever it takes to do file and print sharing with windows clients (and one lonely Linux box!).
Heck, NT4 would be just about perfect too. Pity that didn’t get open sourced when it was killed off! Ran great with 8MB of RAM too.
Long story short, I’m looking ideas and/or products to evaluate and try. Got one? Leave a comment here or drop me a note via the contact form. You’ll get credit for any future articles and you’ll be helping me out. 
A NAS running linux?
I find this article rather impressive: Basically a guy got a little network attached storage device to run debian linux. So, he has a $100 computer. High geek quotient!
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