This is a very important question you need to answer before you get started on this adventure. The reason why it is important to answer this first is so you can decide which hardware will be best suited for your needs, it is also good for making sure that you do not do unneeded work, or have to do something twice. You can also save time and effort in some situations if you know what you want to do and get it setup in a particular order.

     We cover all of this in the tutorials, and you can browse through them manually if you want. We have also set up some categories to walk you through exactly what software and/or hardware you will need for each purpose you want your server to serve. These categories are over in the left column.

     If I were to summerize this entire page into one small bit of advice for picking your computer, I would say that any machine that supports Leopard should work good for most any service we cover on this site with only a couple of exceptions. The exceptions may be a media center or a fileserver. The reason why a media center may be an exception is that converting videos can take a long time (which is not a problem if you don't mind being patient), and playing back videos can be taxing on the CPU, especially if you are using HD video. If the computer you are setting up as a server is not powerful enough to play the desired video, you will see a choppy video, and possibly choppy sound. As for a fileserver, if you are just serving a bunch of smaller files like MS Office files and text files, you won't need to worry about this exception. If you are planning on sharing larger files on your local network, like a lot of audio files simultaneously, or sharing video files, then you need to pay attention to your network.

     At this point you need to make a couple of decisions before going any further. First, you need to decide what you want to do with your server. If you need help with this, you can use the links to the left on this page. Second, you need to decide on your hardware. If you already have a computer, then you need to find out if your computer will do what you want it to, and do it satisfactorily. If you do not already have your computer, you need to pick which one will fit your needs the best. If you need help with either of these two things, you can use use the hardware section of this site.

     Once you have your hardware picked out and physically set up, the next step is to install the operating system and configure a few settings to allow it to be readily used as a server. Once these things are done, continue by choosing the purporse to the left.

     Use these links for what you will need.