Hey
I've got an old server in my basement and i want to host a forum on it. I know there are also online free forum hosting but i want to learn what i'm doing. I want to use this thread to ask for advice. Right now my plan is to install fedora on the server cause i use it as a desktop too and then start installing things like apache and php. And also make the server available on my local network so i can access it from my room instead of from the basement. I guess my first questions are
- Is fedora a good OS to do this ?
-What kind of software do i need to install for forum hosting ?
-Would it be better to use the old server wich has 2 pentium 3 processors or my old pentium 4 pc?

thx in advance

I personally do not like fedora BUT that is just my opinion, you should experiment with different distros and form your own. I would recommend ubuntu or debian.

You can use phpbb for a forum on top of the apache webserver and mysql backend. It should come as a package with your distro. For ubuntu/debian:

>>-Would it be better to use the old server wich has 2 pentium 3 processors or my old pentium 4 pc?

It doesn't matter unless it gets to be a high volume site, then that won't be enough anyway. You will probably bottleneck at disk I/O or bandwidth before you hit CPU caps.

Thx a lot i'm now using ubuntu as a desktop so i will try that. I'll see if i can get it running then the next problem will probably be to acces it from the internet. But i'll set it up tonight first.

Take a look at /etc/network/interfaces and configure your NIC with the proper settings. After that you can run ifdown eth0; ifup eth0 to bind the settings after you change the interfaces file. In this case eth0 is my ethernet network adapter.

created a forum using XAMPP and phpBB. then configured my router and now everything works. Solved !