Newbie questions about Linux servers and BSD

[John007]

Hello,

I am new here, and this web site looks great!

I hope I'm not taking up too much of your time, I just had a couple questions relating to networking Linux and using a Unix OS called OpenBSD.

Is there a best Linux recommended to use for file servers? I have an old computer that could be put to use as a home server, so any tips would be appreciated. Preferably it would be an easy-to-use distribution. I have experimented with Mandrake Linux and Yoper with KDE on a desktop computer, although I never have really understood how they work under the hood, so to speak, and I know nothing about using Linux for servers.

My second question is, can the operating system called OpenBSD be run with a desktop environment like KDE? I will be going to college next year, and probably take computer science, so by using OpenBSD I hope to learn about Unix and computer security better.

Finally, what is samba? I'm sorry, I know I must sound very ignorant, but I'm new to all this stuff and want to learn more about computers.

Again, I hope I'm not being irritating with these newbie questions.
Thanks for your time,
John

[frrossk]

>>Is there a best Linux recommended to use for file servers?
No; almost every Linux distro can be used as a file server, but I'd recommend to use a stable release of a solid distibution like Slackware/Debian/etc...
>>can the operating system called OpenBSD be run with a desktop environment like KDE?
Yes, it can...
>>what is samba?
http://us4.samba.org/samba/what_is_samba.html
>>so by using OpenBSD I hope to learn about Unix and computer security better.
I'd also recommend to try first FreeBSD, since this OS seems to be better documented, and start with the handbook