New Linux Server Help?

[DAVEM]

Hi All,

I've decided to throw a couple of hundred at developing a new linux server.

I dont know to much about linux, but I want the following:
A) To be able to SSH -X into the box and run graphical apps (so if I ssh from X11 in OS X, and type xclock I actually want the window to appear!)
B) The same functionality for remote hosts (i.e. to be able to do the same from anywhere obviously this means security is an issue too).

So I'm not sure with Linux OS to go with?? and how to set this up??

Cheers

David

 

[DAVEM]

They should all be able to do this, though you will need to install an SSH server and an SSH client.

Most come with these out the box and those that don't can usually have it installed with a minimum of fuss (I'm thinking of Ubuntu when I type that last bit!)

Is there any particular reason you're wanting to set up a linux server though? What services/ tasks do you plan on using it for?

I need it to run R (stats package), as some of my models take a couple of weeks to run I dont want my main machine tied up with it. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a 1.83 C2D with 4GB of RAM but only a small HDD (80GB) so should cost too much.

Cheers

David

 

[DAVEM]

Fairly sensible then, though does your department not offer centralised compute servers for this sort of number crunching? Just thinking about admin overhead and your electric bills tbh

I would go with something fairly common such as Ubuntu, Fedora or Centos as a base distro, and install the R binary from their website (don't go for anything in the apt/yum repositories as they will either be out of date, have things missing or install stuff like libraries in "interesting" locations).

They do indeed, but they're always pretty busy and I want to run some models that aren't strictly anything to do with my research and I can't mess around with installing my own software (for example the JRI). I already the source libraries I want to run (plus one that I'm programming at the moment) so I'll just do R CMD INSTALL ..... I might just stick it in the departments computer room so they can pay for the elecky!

Cheers

David