I'm currently working on a small home server using Ubuntu 8.04 server. I heard that it's a good idea to have the OS on it's seperate HDD and the other files being stored on another. Could anyone give a tutorial or information on this? I've got 2 HDDs 1 is 10 gigs, the other 40 gigs. I would like to run the OS on the 10 gig, and all of the other services such as file storage and FTP on the other HDD, But I have absolutely no clue how to go about doing this. I hope this is a fairly clear question.

Thanks

Basically you would need to install it onto the external HD and though keeping your system and personal files separate is always a good idea I think you would be better of doing the opposite and keeping your personal files on the external drive. Pendrive Linux has many guides on installing Ubuntu on a external drive from Windows/Linux/Ubuntu Live CD.

Hi

One of the answers to your initial questions about seperating your partitions is how you will set up your server with respect to users and virtual servers, if any. For example, if you would allow a few different web sites on this machine, say some each from each machine user, then it's simpler for them if you use virtual servers and set their server root to be in their ~/public_html directories.

You can have your web root in /var/www as apache installs by default, but you'll have to give some of your users scary permissions on the machine so they can manage their sites. If the server is only to be used by you, your sites, your box, then use the default /var/www. Some script that you find later and want to install through apt or aptitude will want to see defaults. My partiton scheme below would change to reflect using the default /var/www instead of user /home/uname/public_html directories. Adjust accordingly.

Setting up a LAMP server for your LAN or to serve sites to the world at large is very simple. A lot of people become frustrated when they don't set their server initially to be all the things they want ot to be later on. Virtual hosts, yes or no? How much ram to devote to the setup, users if necessary - processes? What remote access allowed? Role of the machine - strict web server for LAN or world? But fret not - one can always change their setup to accomodate changes in policy or ideology - or whatever reason.

How much RAM on the beast?

Yessir, seperate your stuff. I'd go further than you want though. On your 10GB drive, I'd set up a few primaries.

hda1 - 50MB /boot (set bootable flag)
hda2 - 3GB / (root)
hda3 - 5GB /var
hda4 - balance /tmp

On the other 40GB drive I'd do somethig like this:

hdb 1 - (how much RAM?) 2GB /swap (some folks like swap in the beginning, some the middle, some the end of a hdd)
hdb2 - 30GB /home
hdb3 - 8GB /vault (or, backup, or whatever)

Your /var partition holds your databases, logs - and can get pretty big. It's always a good idea to have a seperate /tmp partition of at least a GB.

Setting up LAMP is simple, sure. But there are a zillion variables. A zillion questions to answer so its setup can be efficient, secure, and robust. I can help with Debian and most can apply to Ubuntu. They are different, though, and I think Ubuntu might be a better choice for desktop than server. But work it and see.