Starting a home file/media Linux server as a project

Question

I can see this gets asked fairly often, but I've got a bit different of a idea for what I want to do here.

Right now I have a laptop running Windows 8.1 and a Galaxy S5 as my main devices. Both are running a little low on on space, and I'd like to start working with Linux as sort of a hobby-type thing. I figure I could kill two birds with one stone by setting up a home server using Linux to share files to my phone and laptop, possibly with DLNA for my Playstation.

However, I'm a broke college student so I'd like to do this on a budget. I have a somewhat old desktop that can run W7 alright but will need some repairs (I think the PSU is shot). I was thinking of putting Linux on it and starting with a home server, then branching out to possibly game servers/some sort of remote access.

Any suggestions on my best course of action here?

Answer 1

Quick google search gives me this: http://linuxhomeserverguide.com/initial/Plan.php

Information is a bit old - Ubuntu version from 4+ years ago - but it looks like a good starter.

Expect that learning the basics are going to take some time.

As a side note, try something like the Ubuntu XFCE edition, since the (default) Unity version is a bit resource-hungry comparatively. http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/trusty/release/

Answer 2

If you want it for entertainment purposes, try XPenology. It's a kind of emulation layer to run Synology DSM software on non-Synology computers. This will allow you to install all mentioned features and many more.

Answer 3

Since almost all applications in Linux are open source you should be able to do almost all of this for free. I would suggest using Ubuntu Linux for a gui but if you want good performance Ubuntu server is a solid choice. To set up an ftp server you will probably want to use vsftpd which is an ftp server. You can find out how to set up vsftpd at this link vsftpd is also open source so making a file server in Linux is free using this route.