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On 06/04/13 08:33, Neil Winchurst wrote: > I would choose VBox since I have used it a lot in the past. But I am > not clear about why I would need to install a 'normal' distro on it > and then VBox. Since this is an old computer which I no longer use > surely I can just use it as a way of learning about all this. If it > all goes pear shaped for whatever reason it won't really matter, I can > just start again. > > Meanwhile I have my current box which will not be affected, to start > with anyway. > > Thanks > > Neil Well, you did say you were interested in setting up a linux server didn't you? As others have said, there's essentially no difference in the software - just about any distro can be used equally on a tiny netbook, full size workstation or an entire data centres worth of blade clusters, it's much more about how you admin and use the system. And the first and most important difference from your normal computers linux install and a server build is that a server needs to be stable, non-volatile and you are absolutely not allowed to be able to completely trash it in a moment of experimentation! So you set up a stable, known good base OS and then go from there, hence slapping a virtualization environment on it immediately and from then on working in that. So now, as you say, if it goes pear shaped for any reason and you have to start again it's a lot easier working with VMs. Just for a start, you probably won't have to start again, you just roll back through your snapshot tree until a point where you can resume your failed experiment. More to the point, is there ANY reason whatsoever why you wouldn't do this? It's all about virtualization these days. The vast majority of linux servers out there these days are either virtualized instances or virtual hosts themselves. If you prefer, you could cut straight to the chase and install a bare metal hypervisor OS instead, such as the free VMWare ESXi or Oracle VM options: you'll get a very basic, bare bones system (linux based) on the bare metal who's only job is to get virtualization running immediately. Personally I would go with CentOS + KVM for my server base (or Debian + KVM) but you've also got BSD + jails/chroots, Solaris + Xen, VMWare VSphere, Linux + VServer or OpenVZ... the world's your oyster really, and they're all free. Probably shouldn't mention it around here but don't forget you can get a 180 day free trial of windows server 2012 to play with as well, which is not only another very decent server OS but has it's own vastly improved hypervisor + tool stack these days too. Just trust me on this :] You definitely DO want to go the virtualization route, you just haven't realised it yet. You can thank me later when you're a highly skilled self-taught linux guru. Cheers -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq