Small cheap pc to run linux server for web development

nicl

nicl

nicl

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Joined
25 Feb 2009
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17
Hi all,

I'm looking to buy a small and cheap pc (or make one) to run as a linux server for locally developing websites.

I currently have a Dell M14X laptop which is great for games but doesn't offer great linux support because of the hybrid graphics switching. At the moment I'm dual booting between win7 and ubuntu 11 but I think it would be better to simply run w7 on the laptop and get a cheap small box for linux, and then access it via a network/ssh. This way I won't have to constantly switch between windows and linux, and I can avoid virtualisation etc to run CS5.

Can anyone suggest a cheap build/option that could do this. Budget is up to £200 but ideally no more.

I guess it won't need to be that powerful as it will only be running the server. I don't have loads of space so smaller is better.

ps. Currently living in France for the year so not sure if shipping is possible?

Thanks!
 
Legion said:
google "HP microserver" matey.

you wont get better for 200 quid.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I've got mine on NAS duties, but 1GB ram and 160GB drive is more than enough for some web dev atleast to start :) O and you can boot for USB should you want to have all that 160GB for storage.
It's also very very quiet with plenty of room to expand. Highly recommended.
 
Why not run W7 on your laptop and then vmware for an ubuntu server edition install? If it's just for local development there's really no need to get a physical box.
 
Hi all,

thanks for the advice. Will look into the HP for sure.

Re: why not just run virtualbox etc. I did try this option but found it frustratingly slow. My laptop is certainly not slow(!), so not sure whether I just didn't configure it great or if the performance I experienced is just normal. But it was really annoying ;(

ps. when I tried virtualbox before it was with the regular Ubuntu, not sure if the server edition would be noticeably faster or not...will have a look.
 
Last edited:
nicl said:
Hi all,

thanks for the advice. Will look into the HP for sure.

Re: why not just run virtualbox etc. I did try this option but found it frustratingly slow. My laptop is certainly not slow(!), so not sure whether I just didn't configure it great or if the performance I experienced is just normal. But it was really annoying ;(

ps. when I tried virtualbox before it was with the regular Ubuntu, not sure if the server edition would be noticeably faster or not...will have a look.
Click to expand...

Server edition doesn't have a gui - it's CLI only and it's pretty fast. I guess it depends on what you need the box to do. If it's just to run a lamp stack then server edition will be fine.
 
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