Creating a Basic NAS With Ubuntu Linux

The set of instructions will show one how to create a basic public (to the LAN) file server using Ubuntu Linux. This allows one to turn any aging PC into a pretty nice Network Attached Storage (NAS) device. There are many options out there for building a basic NAS server, one notable one being FreeNAS. The author chose Ubuntu because it is flexible, popular, and widely supported. The author also likes Ubuntu because of its simplicity in configuration - it is dead easy to set up a very basic Linux server with minimal cruft installed.