Debian, is a package of software tools combined together under the open-licensed GNU (General Public Library) and some other free software, of the Linux operating systems which means it uses the Linux kernel. This operating system is the most popular and one of its best OS versions is the UBUNTU operating system.

Since you want to get with your operating system some basic tools, and of course some extra efficient tools, instead of finding each program that you find that you need, the Debian package has been created to contain the basic tools that are needed for and operating system.

The Debian package is being used both for Server and for Desktop operating systems, again the Debian package is the core of those operating system which are built upon the Debian package, like UBUNTU Linux distribution system.

So with all of those Linux distributions out there, why choose Debian? well, it is quite simple:

• A non-commercial totally free distribution.
• A true GNU/Linux distribution based on the Unix command style. This assures that the core that you are using will not be changed as time passes since it is the core of things.
• Easy to maintain – so you can easily get it updated and up to date, there is a mechanism that knows how to identify missing packages and update on required dependencies.
• Automatic updating – You can use automatic updates using a single command, which will collect the needed required updates from the internet, and install them automatically.
• The Debian distribution only uses real free software and it contains already around 25,000 applications and utilities.
• Help is accessible through forums, chat rooms of the community. You can get answers to almost any question you might have and there are developers who improve it daily.
• Performance is excellent and of course cheap since it uses any type of hardware, and does not require hardware upgrades or requires stronger equipment.
• Reliability and stability are the core focus of Debian, and you do not need to reboot it contantly.

— You can read more about the Debian packages at http://www.debian.org/ and get http://www.debian.org/, even though I would recommend working with Ubuntu than on Debian directly.

The reasons why Debian can be the perfect server are because it contains many common software tools, for almost any purpose that servers are being used for like those basic ones:

• • Web server – Apache, PHP, Python, Mysql
  • Mail server – Postfix.
  • DNS server – Bind9
  • FTP server – Proftpd

• File Server – Samba

When you want to protect your internal network, either your business network or your home network and you want to install the firewall yourself, there is an option to use a Linux firewall application. Linux has many benefits about installing applications by yourself, of course you need to learn some Linux to do so, but that is one of the reasons why it might be a good idea to get to know Linux. You can install almost anything that you might need, and it’s free.

I am specifying a couple of good ones, but there are many more. I set a link at the bottom of this article, that links to a very long list of firewall options 🙂

Firestarter – When you’re using a desktop version of the Linux operating system, you can use this graphic firewall application.
•    Easy to use graphic interface (might ease configuration if you have some basic understanding of how firewalls work).
•    This application is of course an open source application, and free.
•    The firewall enables more than one station to be connected to it and of course be protected.
•    You can easily define inbound and outbound traffic – which are of course the core of firewall designation – defining who can exit and who can access the services from the internet.
•    The firewall includes – white-list & black-list traffic – who is allowed and who isn’t
•    You can monitor the traffic, see what is passing through your firewall and online events.

Endian Firewall – This firewall is based on the open source most common command line Linux firewall called IPCOP, This firewall includes web filtering (Web Proxy), SIP Proxy (for Switchboards), VPN, Content Filtering, Mail gateway, Anti-virus, Anti-spyware, Anti-fishing etc…
Some of it features are:
•    There is an easy to use web interface – web management service to configure it.
•    It supports Routing and NAT (for configuring what is allowed and disallow to pass through the firewall.
•    Port forwarding
•    Network traffic logs, Reporting system.
•    IPSec VPN – for VPN secured access from outside the network.
•    Anti -Virus is based on the Clam AV mechanism.
•    Traffic monitoring is by using the nTop.
•    SPAM Protection using pyzor
•    Dynamic DNS support
•    Dnsmasq – is used for the DHCP and DNS.
•    There is also Windows based support – Samba, LDAP, RADIUS.

SmoothWall Express – This firewall offers a good security firewall, for minimal hardware, which can be fitted well on old computers with old slow configurations. This firewall is being configured using a web based management console. You can configure ADSL, ISDN, Web Proxy, DHCP configurations.
There is a nice video that shows and explains about the Smooth-Wall.

There are many other options which you can read on at this link 🙂