I just bought several OEM Intel Xeon 3.4G because they are cheap and I am planning to build a server, but I was wondering if there is anyone out there renting a server machine by itself?

Here is my server specification will be:

SuperMicro MotherBoard
Dual Intel Xeon 3.4 (2 CPUS)
2GB or more of PC2700 ECC Reg.
Onboard LAN
Onboard Video
I will put on as many hard drives as can I can... depends on the case size...what else do i miss here?

Please advice me what kind of OS and Softwares I should install for a server because I never run a server before.....

Once the server is up and running all I have to do is put on colocation?...there is a texas network Level3 carrier colocation on my backyard.

Thanks for the advice!

Looks to be a pretty killer server there. I don't think you're really missing anything, unless you want to get into doing a RAID configuration or something of the sort.

If you serach you'll see that everybody has their own opinion on which OS is the best for a server. My vote goes to CentOS 3.3, but there is also Redhat Enterprise (it costs money, CentOS 3.3 is redhat enterprise without the logos so it's free), FreeBSD (4.x and 5.x) Fedora Core 2 (there is FC3 out now as well), Debian, Gentoo, Mandrake, and many more. If you have never run a server before, CentOS 3.3 is pretty easy to learn, and very common in the hosting industry.

As for software on the server, that all depends on what it is going to be used for.

After you have your server all set, you just need to colocate it and you have you're all set.