Hey all, i'm going to be setting up a LAMP server in the office primarily for network storage, hosting a very small site and some small file transfers via FTP. The server will also be headless so it'll need a decent VNC server app running.

My main question is what distro of Linux should I run on the server? Ubuntu Server or Debian. I was attracted to Ubuntu Server because of it's promise of being able to setup the LAMP directly from the installer, yet Debian is more stable by design, at least thats my understanding.

I'll be using SMB for file transfers inside the network and i've some basic experience with setting that up but I was wondering if AFP is supported by either one of these distros and if anyone knows of any solutions I can use for this? as one or two people will be using Macs from time to time.

Next in line for questioning is what would you guys recommend I use as the VNC server? I've no experience with this so any links or advice you could offer in the VNC area would be great.

So to summarise,
Ubuntu Sever or Debian?
AFP Possible?
VNC server setup?

Thanks guys

you will be carrying all your eggs in one basket seeing your plans of implementing this, putting vnc/file/smb server and lamp server separate is what I would (edit) NOT advise ,

Distro will be your own choice as you will be the admining it i suppose . any stable release will be good.

BTW Why do you want to put VNC if you are going to do SMB and FTP setup ? want to keep GUI running on a server? not advisable. (if you are handy with command line admining).

As above, VNC is not necessary, nor commonly advised.

If you are adverse to a shell type login, there is "webmin" that can be used to manage your server through a web interface.

Trying out "webmin" now, thanks for the advice. I'll knock VNC off the list of "To Dos" then

What about the AFP protocol anyone got any advice around that?

why do you need AFP support? SMB works on different platforms and should be sufficient for your mac users. however, if you still need it, netatalk should work well.

thanks for the heads up on netatalk. SMB currently causes Kernel Panics for me when I access via the Ubuntu Server. Not important anymore as I've everything setup to be accessible via FTP