Help With Installing Linux Server

Vennom

New Member
So I have big dreams and if someone could point me in the right direction that would be dandy.
I'm going to be living in a suite next year with a couple other people and I want to have a computer act as a main server. It would always be on and stay in the common room and it would have all the movies and music on it.

Ideally all the files on the computer could be accessed from any other computer on the network (wifi). I'd like to be able to stream the movies(realtime) from the main server computer to any other computer connected. As well as play music that is stored on the server(realtime) from any other computer connected. But of course I wouldn't want anyone outside the LAN to be able to access anything.

I'd like to dual boot with windows 7 and some version of linux. But I don't know how much space to allot for each partition. Like would I give 5 gigs to linux partition, 5 gigs to windows 7 partition, then partition part of the hard drive to just be storage space (and would that be accessible by both OS partitions)?

Which version of linux would I want that would be capable of doing what I've listed?
Should I go with a linux server or just a regular ubuntu type deal?

I don't have the specific specs but I'd do this on a desktop pc that was top of the line about a year ago. Has about 500 GB of internal storage.
I don't know if this is posted in the right place and obviously sorry if I've put anything ignorantly, but if I could get a link to a website that magically answers all my questions or a shove in the right direction, it'd be much appreciated.
Thanks.
 
7 needs about 30 gigs, 5 gigs for Linux would work, the rest can be storage space. Almost any version of Linux will work
 
If the unit is going to be a server, then why dual-boot?

There are Linux distributions out there that are specifically designed for servers. ClearOS comes to mind. Just about any Linux can easily be set up as a server, though.

Ubuntu has a Server version, and one of its variants, Mythbuntu is, if I recall correctly, a media center OS.

If you are going to be using the computer for anything other than as a server, then you are going to want to have a little more storage allocated than 5GB for the OS. I run Ubuntu 10.04 dual-boot with Win7 and I have some 75GB allocated between root and home partitions whereas Win7 is on a 110GB partition (preinstalled on a laptop, with 37GB free).
 
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