Choosing distribution

1.
- easy to setup (no difficult command line stuff)
The most of modern distributions use graphical interface to install.

2.
- network functionality
- only need Office software
- stable (a crash cost me a lot of money)
- secure (among other things virus free)
First of all, You have to use distributions that have supporting and enterprise level.
For example RedHat Enterprise Linux http://www.redhat.com or SuSE http://www.suse.orghttp://www.novell.com/linux/suse/index.html
But this list is not full. That's just an example of enterprise ready distributions.

3.
- capable of using Windows-only software (like my banking software). Isn't that called Wine?
That's a problem. Wine is not stable yet. Not all of windows software could work under wine.
Moreover, if you think it works that doesn't mean it would work fine and full-functionally.
If you want to use banking software then I think you should run it under wine.

4.
- should be a reasonable general solution, so that support could be found easily on the Internet
Read the (2.)

Thanks Marxy,

Isn't RedHat Enterprise somewhat overkill? I don't need server software. It's just for one PC connected to a small network of Windows XP PC's.

Arie

I would recommend RedHat (that's just the one I'm most familiar with...) - but I wouldn't go for the current Enterprise releases, since that will increase your investment significantly.

RH 9 would be good - RHEL 3 was based on that, so it's a safe bet. Fedora would probably be OK, but it's a bit more cutting edge, so it may be slightly less stable (maybe someone else will comment on that...)

you can download it from here: http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=7

you'll have to test your banking software...it may or may not work! You can download a WINE binary for RedHat 9 here: http://www.winehq.com/site/download-rh

after you save the file on your server, you can open a console and run 'rpm -Uvh <name of the rpm file>'  to install WINE (yes, command line!)

Dear Macker,

Thanks for your fine and thorough explanation. You covered my most important questions. I got into CentOS, and think that it might serve my needs. I still have two questions for you, Macker: is CentOS widely sopported (don't need an exotic solution) and should I need e.g. Kaspersky Linux as virus killer? I have a router and NAT configured in it, so that might be sufficient.

Thanks,

Arie

Hi Arie,

CentOS is well-supported by the current maintainers of the distribution.  That is to say, they're not making any money off of this, and there is no commercial contracts, so it's always possible that they'll decide to discontinue the project for one reason or another.

That said, since CentOS is nearly identical to RedHat ES, any problems you have are probably RedHat ES problems rather than CentOS problems.  What I mean by this is that any problems probably exist in RedHat ES, and the problem was cloned by CentOS.  In general, you should be able to utilize any of the public RedHat support mediums, such as EE and other community forums.  Everything should work the same between the two, the only difference being one has RedHat logos/name and the other doesn't.  (RedHat was extremely permissive in allowing their work to be copied so liberally...)

In short, I think you should have no problems with support for CentOS.  If you do decide you want/need a commercial support contract, etc. then RedHat is the way to go, and it would be an extremely easy migration.

As for anti-virus... I see no reason to be concerned about viruses on Linux at this time.  As I said, it is possible (there have been proof-of-concept viruses), but Linux makes it extremely difficult for these to function.  Anti-virus software wont help you with worms and trojans on Linux, so really the only purpose is to scan for Windows viruses that wont affect you in the first place.  Your NAT router should be sufficient to stop typical worm attacks; unless the router is specifically instructed to forward specific ports to your Linux system, the remote connections will harmlessly drop.

What I would suggest is avoid bad security practices, specifically: use strong passwords, disable services you don't need (e.g. ftp/smtp/www/etc.), and only use the 'root' account for system maintenance tasks like installing new software.  A good way to maintain this habit is to use "su" or "sudo"; both commands are used to temporarily run things as "root" (or other users), without starting a new login session.  su prompts you for the password of the user (i.e. root's password), while sudo uses a table (/etc/sudoers) of users who are allowed to run commands as other users.  In the case of sudo, it logs the commands you run, and can be configured to limit what commands can be run.  su should be fine for you, sudo is more useful for giving partial access to others, without giving them the actual root password.

If you have any other questions regarding this, feel free to ask.

No, Redhat would not be overkill.
It has flexible setiings and you could install the things only that you want.

Many thanks Macker! You're really thorough in your contributions. I did some extra reading on CentOS and decided that CentOS is the way to go. I will implement your suggestions in order to have a low cost, stable and secure product.

Thanks all of you for your advice. I'll have to give Macker all the points.

Arie

Thanks Arie...

I see the value of EE as sharing knowledge, rather than just answering questions, so I try to fulfill that ideal.  Glad to hear it hit the mark. :)