Thread: Need help with Ubuntu Server

I just built a server out of old pc bits I had lying around and new hdds, and I decided to put Ubuntu Server on it. I have managed to install (but I reversed out from the install so its empty right now) from usb flash drive but I want to keep the OS on the flash drive and boot from there not boot from internal hdd, is this possible?

this might be what your lookin for

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD

Keeping the OS installed on a USB stick will slow thing down, a lot...


Right now you set up a USB stick as installation media, so you can't install there. Use another source as installation media (CD, DVD, another USB stick) and during the partitioning phase of the installation choose the USB stick as the target drive (root partition) and make it bootable.

In simple words you need these ingredients:

• ubuntu server install iso
• usb-stick minimum 2GB size
• usb-creator (all major OS-es are supported)

Was going to try to explain to you how to make that but than I discovered it would be better that you try to follow this guide:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...n/FromUSBStick

Wow thanks for the quick responses!

If its going to slow things down then maybe I won't bother keeping the OS on the usb.

So is it like windows, where you install the OS on a faster drive then use bigger slower drives as storage? Because appart from the usb flash drive I have 4 x 2TB drives (3xHitachi Dstars 5900rpm and 1xSeagate Barracuda Green 5900rpm) installed, so would either of those be suitable or do I want a smaller faster OS drive?

I thought that you want to install on USB because of some other reason :)

Having 4 HDD drives gives you option to choose and complicates situation, software RAID in linux is really powerful tool.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SoftwareRAID

partition layout suggestion

• 10 - 20 GB for root partition
• 2GB swap
• remaining space - do whatever you want with it, you can even leave it un-partitioned and decide that later.
  /home partition can be mounted as rest of the HDD space, there is no right or wrong answer here

Another good tutorial if you already have running server:
http://www.howtoforge.com/software-r...ot-debian-etch

P.S: when it comes to partitioning good approach can also be LVM, you can even combine LVM and software RAID but it brings complexity too.
https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/server...tallation.html

It all comes down to the use you wanna make of that machine: tell us the specs of the machine (CPU, ram, etc.. ) and what you're planning to do with it ; )

As for your question: yes, having the OS installed on a faster drive will of course speed things up, but that may also be absolutely irrelevant for what you're planning to do with this machine xD

If you're just building a data storage system to share the content of those drives over the network (samba/ftp/nfs/whatever) the speed of the OS drive matters maybe just to the boot up process, as you don't need to load more than a few lightweight programs to do that. If you're making a desktop system, it could be important to have faster drives. Again, it all depends on what you have on your mind for this machine ^^

One of your goal will surely be to store large amounts of data (8TB, seriously? xD ) so what ultrasbox suggested is worth looking into. I totally agree on what he/she said: linux software raid is extremely powerful and may very well suit your needs.

As for partitioning, using a logical approach is always convenient : ) if possible keep the OS on a separate drive (as in a totally different disk). This will speed up the system and reduce stress to the data drives. Then you can have multiple partitions on the system disk to try (or to keep!) different OSes ^^

Sorry I haven't yet read all the links you guys sent or properly digested all the info yet, but I will.

The machine I've built will be used as storage for all media types. I'll be streaming through cat5 cable to my desktop PC(windows) and my Popcorn Hour A210, and music will be streamed wirelessly to my Squeezebox.
I want to have some sort of auto back up system so that when a HDD fails nothing will be lost. I don't want to have to manually back stuff up as I'll bloody forget when it matters or something!
8TB should keep me happy for a while. I have about 2.5TB now in my PC and its full and I'm having to delete stuff to add more! Sounds a lot until you start getting into untouched BluRays at 45ishGB a shot which is only about 22 movies per TB.
But thats just the stuff I want to do with it right now, and I'm sure once I get into Ubuntu I'll find more to play about with and I'll probably add to the network soon enough.

So back to speed of the OS - I guess making it super fast is not important but I don't want its slowness to be an issue either.
Its going to be a headless server and its old gear inside apart from the HDDs.
Pentium D cpu, 2 GB ram, MSI 945 Platinum mobo, some old GPU - all purchased from my bro in law from his work for £10. All in an Antec P150 case (including 430w Antec PSU) I wasn't using.

Sounds like I need another small OS HDD. 160GB enough? Should only cost £35.

Since you will mostly stream content from there, it will serve you just as network storage, correct ? In that case there is no need for extra HDD, because there is no any server application that will need it.

Most likely to protect data you will need RAID-1, now question is do you like more space or data, because you could build 2 RAID-1 arrays from those 4 drives. That will leave you with only 4 TB because of redundancy but on other hand you will have ~2x faster reads from those arrays and your data will be safer. You need to calculate what you want and assemble disks according to that, you can have 2 disks without RAID too. Data safety .... hdd space .... data safety .... hdd space :)