Looking for a Server Mentor

Hello All

The time has come for me to begin to understand servers in much more detail.
I know very little about Linux (read that as “I know nothing about Linux”).
I know even less about Apache and all of it’s associated bits and pieces.
My total exposure to server configuration has been to set up IIS on my Win2K laptop that I use for PHP development.

As I’m doing this in collaboration with a friend of mine (purely for educational purposes) we decided to pay for a Vserver from easyspace……… so both of use can play together

This gives us Apache running under Debian GNU/Linux 3.0
For the time being, primary access to this thing is being done through a Webmin control panel (which is supposed to make things easy!)

I don’t want to ask any specific questions here at the moment as I’m sure to look like a complete idiot…….. which may be true come to think of it.

What I would like to ask is this……..

Assuming you were in my position, where would you start, what would you read, which forums would be a good place to hang out?

Part of the problem I’m faced with is that I “thought” I had a reasonable grasp of how it all hung together. My embarrassing lack of knowledge is only exposed when faced with a real server and a total inability to make it do anything!!

All the documentation I have so far come across is just one step ahead of where I am and makes to many assumptions ie, that the readers understanding is already at a certain level.

This is a problem I have come across many times in the past but once I have grasped the basics, I’m off and running.

So, what are you thoughts………. Where do I begin? And is there anyone out there who wouldn’t mind being pestered and asked incredibly stupid questions for a couple of weeks, just to help me on my way?

Thanks for your interest

Regards

Baines

Maybe I posted this in the wrong forum but I can’t see where else it would have fitted any better.

Anyhow, I am now slowly getting to grips with the intricacies of severs, web hosting, DNS records and all sorts of magic stuff but I can’t say its been easy.

The very best of luck to anyone else who wanders off down this path……

Baines

It's probably a better idea to post any questions in here rather than relying on one person to be the mentor. Divide and conquer. Nobody seems to mind reading forums and tossing off a quick answer voluntarily; I suspect people are just reluctant to set themselves up to be the one-stop shop for answers and having no real control over whether or not they feel compelled to respond.

dhuston, thanks for the comments. I knew it was an odd question to ask and probably not the best way to ask it, but as I’ve had so much fantastic help and support from this site, I thought I’d give it a go

Part of the problem, when starting out on a completely new subject, it that there are just so many unanswered questions and just a general discussion about some of the basic concepts can be very useful.

No doubt I’ll be back with specifics very soon

Kind regards

Baines