OK, so don't call the internet cops on me, but I want to convert a small file server that I built recently into a torrent box, whilst still maintaining it's file server capabilities (to be accessed by Windows boxes). Functionality of the OS needs to be as follows: Able to run torrentflux Able to have shares with windows boxes Able to be accessed via LogMeIn Able to be accessed via RealVNC Easy to install and set up because I'm still a unix beginner despite having experimented with it before Spec of the box: 2GB DDR 2.6GHz P4 Northwood Dell Dimension 4600 motherboard 2x SATA-II IcyBox Hotswap caddies 2x 1TB WD Caviar Greens 2x 250GB WD IDE drives Any help or guidance appreciated guys, also I have plans to add a PCI RAID controller some time soon and expand the storage with a RAID array (probably R0) so I'll need to be able to install drivers for that etc correct? Thanks in advance.
Solaris? Personally i really like some of what SunMS does so if it was me i'd give it a try, or freeBSD.
I shall have to say ubuntu, its easy and i prefer transmission as its got a nice web GUI. However my once XP server that went ubuntu is now going to windows home server, as there is a bug in ubuntu 9.10 which bones you're data when using ext 3 or 4, they say its only been found in ext 4, but its smoked my ext 3 aswell. So i am pretty pissed off about it as i now have to strip it all down to format back to NTFS, shifting 1.25TB of crap around isn't fun!
Maybe not be exactly what you are after, but I know that torrentflux runs on clarkconnect. And it would give you a web frontend instead of having to vnc etc. I believe freenas has a good torrent client as well, maybe even be torrentflux, haven't used it for a while.
I have to say Arch Linux would be my choice. It's so difficult to get it up and running and you can customize it the way you want. Also, it doesnt come full bloated with stuff that you don't actually need. Just read the - worderfully built - wiki. However, I would suggest investing some time to learn OpenBSD (or any *BSD for that matter), I know it sounds ridiculously difficult to get it up and running but after that you don't need to maintain in at all and you know it won't fail you. The problem with the various *BSD flavours would be the lack of information given as well as the elitistic people behind it. Non the less I think, that as an experienced user - even if it's Windows - you will be able to go with both option given and configure them properly. Just giving some more options that can (or not) be much more customizable than some others. In the end, you have Debian Stable witch is a medium solution of the above with some excess software that you might need (although in both the above you are one command away from doing the same .)
