Some more details as far as my experience and expectations. Experience: I've been using Linux for three years, I use the command line as often as I can. I've never used BSD, but I'm open to new experiences. Expectations: I want this file server for a couple of reasons. 1) I want to gain experience in administering a server, and I figure that this will be a good way to gain some experience in dealing with servers on my own time. 2)I want to install Winblows XP Pro on my second machine, but I want to save a bunch of files from it, so I will need something that can talk to both Winblows, *nix, and, if possible (though not necessary at all), computers running OS' from Apple Inc. Hardware: Off the top of my head, my hardware for the server is 1.25 gigs of RAM, Asus MOBO, ~500 Gigs of HDD space, split between two PATA drives and a SATA drive, either 64MB or 128 MB GFX card (nvidia I believe), AMD Athlon 2400 CPU. Security: For security, I'm thinking ssh/tls, possibly scp. As far as security of the OS, I'm thinking of installing ipcop, or relying on iptables. Beyond that, I would rather have more options for security than I need, instead of having more needs than I have options. Misc: I am not really looking into backup solutions or raids at the moment, as I am piecing this server together from parts I already have, and HDD space is (relatively) limited. Also, when I said "best," I should have said "better suited to the task," what with "best" being relative. So I hope that helps clarify what I'm looking for, and I apologize if it's long-winded, I tried to make it as short as possible. Thank you for the help, KH.