Ok my NAS has been down for almost 2 weeks trying to get someone from the manufacturer's tech support to take a look at it.

They are in China and the communication with them has been terrible.

Had I known Linux I would have been able to fix it after what was explained to me the problem and fix was.



So I am a complete noob when it comes to Linux. What to do I need to learn? Best way to learn it is to use it?

What hardware to build a dedicated Linux box? I would like to stick with X86-64 hardware if possible.



I want to say they use Fedora on the NAS, but am not sure. I do not know the differences in the various types of Linux available.

I hear people bragging about Ubuntu.



Start from scratch for a Linux noob, software and hardware.



If NAS messes up again I will just build my own.

Well, it doesn't take much hardware at all to run Linux. Put together a simple machine and download Fedora. Maybe pick up an intro book to Linux administration.

I downloaded Ubuntu and did a dual install on my laptop. When I felt like messing with it, I'd just boot into it and go at it.

Pretty much everything you'd need to do is described in depth, I used ubuntuforums.com since that was my 'flavor'.

Install it, get all your hardware working (pay attention to the methods used), get Flash 10 working, etc. and by that time you should be basically able to get around in it.

Then look around for 'creating NAS in Linux', I'm sure there's tutorials out there on it.

Best way is to jump right in, IMO.

If you have a working Windows machine, the easiest way to get a feel for Linux is to download the free VMWare Player from VM Ware and the download one of the Linux virtual machines from the same site (Ubuntu, Fedora - whatever).  

You can start VMWare Player and open the virtual machine you downloaded.  The virtual machine will run as an application running on your windows box.  It is a great way to play with Linux without having to build a new machine.

You can also download a Live CD distro.  You boot your machine off the CD and it runs Linux temporarily.  Once you shut down, you can take out the CD and restart Windows.  There are many Linux magazines that will include these Live CDs (or even DVDs) –– check your local bookstore.


Have fun –– Linux rocks!

I would suggest Ubuntu.  Really straight forward and depending what your going to use the computer for it probably as it already..

http://www.freenas.org/

This is a distribution designed specifically for building a NAS.  It's FreeBSD (another flavor of *nix) but don't let that scare you.

I did this.  Where do I extract the 950MB VM of Ubuntu?  Should I use a temp directory, Program Files, or somewhere else?



I just ordered an Asus eeePC with Linux for traveling, and am planning on installing eeeBuntu Standard if the factory software isn't enough.  I plan to use for Web, light word processing and other Office-like functions.



Any thoughts on eeeBuntu vs. Easy Peasy?



 

Thanks guys for all the great ideas.

I need to come up with some extra hardware to play. The idea of the VMWare is nice, but I would rather work with a set of hardware that I was going to use.

In other words invest my time learning it with the hardware I am going to use.



The NAS is ok now, but I lost use of the bit torrent function for 2 weeks waiting on an answer from China. Ended up having to let the tech in China connect to the NAS to debug it and make firmware changes. Seems something I did found a bug in the firmware they did not know about. The NAS is a QNAP TS209II which itself is a great NAS, but not something that I can easily troubleshoot and repair myself. If it was a Windows Home Server it would be easy to troubleshoot and has a larger user group.

Tomorrow is Dr visits and running around day so I will stop by Books-A-Million and see what they have.

Just to add gun content to this, I wil be stopping by the fun stores.