Which hardware to buy for a new Linux server system?

Question

I want to build a decently performing, but above all stable Linux system for home server use, on a reasonable budget.

Sadly, I have several bad experiences trying to install Linux on recently purchased hardware. Whilst pretty much every component runs on Windows, Linux support is sometimes flaky or just plain nonexistent.

Which off-the-shelf hardware components should I use to build a 100% Linux compatible system? I'm specifically looking for motherboard and graphics card recommendations, since in my experience they are the most prominent sources of incompatibility. But you can recommend other parts as well. Both Intel and AMD are an option.

My distribution will be Debian or Ubuntu Server Edition.

Your answer will be especially appreciated if have built the server and installed the OS yourself, and actually have the system in production use.

There are certainly multiple "right" answers for this question, and best answers will change as new hardware and new drivers become available.

Edit: I won't be running X on the server - just email/ssh/samba/the usual LAMP stuff. I want to serve files on the local network, so performance is not completely irrelevant. But the main requirement is that Linux actually installs and runs on the hardware. (Another edit: being quiet, cool and not too power hungry is a definite plus.)

Edit: WLAN compatibility is a plus.

Edit: I ended up buying the GA-MA78GM-S2H motherboard, AMD 4850e processor, Nexus NX-8050 PSU and a 500GB WD Cavial Green hard disk. My old Vitesta DDR2-800 modules served as memory. Installs and runs Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server Edition with no problems whatsoever. Haven't tried to install X.

Answer 1

Define "Home Server". To me, it isn't a server if it's running X or it has a sound card. And for that purpose, I prefer Debian Stable on anything with graphics on the motherboard, lots of SATA ports and lots of memory - and either two processors or two cores, at the very least. It probably won't run X nicely, or even at all, but apache, postfix, innd and mailman don't care.

Edit: Ok, why was this modded down? It's a serious answer.

Answer 2

ANY reliable hardware will work wonderful. I have an OLD <600Mhz IBM Thinkpad that runs Debian (4.0), it is on 24/7/365 with zero hitches. Find hardware that is reliable and you will be fine, with regards to performance the major thing is memory, depending on what you are doing. Over all keep it simple, but keep your usage in mind, if you will run (My)SQL you will need more memory, if it going to be a file server then you will need more HD.

Answer 3

Check this out: removed newegg link, author choose similar hardware. See original post

This machine humming along at my house right now. Ubuntu 8.04.1 Server had no problems with any of the hardware. The only reason I have a IDE card was for legacy disks, you could use new disks and use the multiple SATA ports on it. 2GB is fine for my home server though you could go for way more. No case or hard disks since I used what I already had. Speedy machine and includes AMD's SVM instruction so you can get hardware virtualization support. To top it all off, the motherboard has just about everything on-board you could ever want including DSUB, DVI, and HDMI.

Update: Machine runs Samba, Apache HTTPD, MySQL, PHP, STunnel+Squid for work proxy all without breaking a sweat. No X. Every piece of hardware worked. Out of the box. The only minor tweak was to lm_sensors to name the temp values. That's it. I built and installed the machine myself.

Update2: Since you don't want to run X, the video card is moot. ANY card will work with minimal text-mode for installation and console access. Once the machine is installed just leave it connected to your network in a closet somewhere. Headless.

Answer 4

"Sadly, I have several bad experiences trying to install Linux on recently purchased hardware. Whilst pretty much every off-the-shelf component runs on Windows, Linux support is sometimes flaky or just plain nonexistent."

I find that hard to believe, that being said, people who write drivers for Linux write them for devices they have. If you get an ABC graphic card that sold only 100 of them in the world, no matter how good it is, then yes you're probably going to have problems with the drivers, Windows and Linux. Also Dell offers reasonably priced servers with Linux installed.

Answer 5

I bought from siliconmechanics.com and presto installed debian stable (etch, 64 bit) and it worked flawlessly. The thing has been in production since summer 2006. At a datacenter. Too loud for home, though. It was less than $900.

Edit: The reason I went with them is that wikipedia (used to?) buy their servers there.

Answer 6

why don't you try the advise from http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001107.html i don't think you want your home server to consume too much power.

I didn't test myself but i belive ubuntu server should just run perfectly fine in it.

Answer 7

I have a huge amount of respect for HP's 'pizza-box' DL-3xx series servers and their equivilant BL 'blade' servers. I work for a decent sized company and we now have several thousand of these blades running SLES and SLES on VMWare ESX 3.5 with astonishing stability, I know you want Ubuntu but I thought I should answer anyway. Good luck and feel free to ask any follow up questions on this kit as required.

Answer 8

My question was appropriately timed as my old server failed today.

Since basszero reported that Ubuntu works on him, I'm probably going to try the much-hyped Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H (also mentioned in the Coding Horror HTPC article). Only I'm a bit hesitant about the 780G chipset because of reports like this:

I can't even seem to install it (Heron.) Harddrive light is solid red. Cursor blinked for a long while. Now I have "Buffer I/O error on device hdb." errors. In addition, I have a SQUASHFS error "failed reading block." Will not got intop setup. Live boot attempt failed as well.

This coincides with some of my experiences with Linux and new hardware. Perhaps some more research still!

Answer 9

Don't buy a consumer system. They are filed with crap you don't need and cards or chipsets that are likely to be unsupported. Go to your favorite vendor, enter through small/medium business, and get last years model of whatever tower server strikes your fancy. If it's for the home, plan on buying an aftermarket fan for $20 to quiet it down.