I'm really thinking about killing my Win2K Server at home and replacing it with Linux/Samba. I'm currently hosting HTTP, FTP, SMTP, and some other basic services. Other than the Mail the other services are a nobrainer.

I'm Using Merak Mail server and absolutely love it 's features (antivirus integration, blocked domains etc.) and ease of administration. Since there is no Linux version I'd lose the use of the product (want to keep things limited to one server.)

Any suggestions (besides sendmail)?

Avoid Sendmail. Use Postfix. I fully agree with the quote from their website: Postfix attempts to be fast, easy to administer, and secure, while at the same time being sendmail compatible enough to not upset existing users. Thus, the outside has a sendmail-ish flavor, but the inside is completely different.

Of course that takes care of getting the mail to the box, then you need something to be there to answer the POP/IMAP requests. I personally use Courier for my IMAP, and whatever SuSE uses by default for POP. (I keep them seperate because I have Courier set to use Maildir format mail, much faster for IMAP, whereas I use the old mbox format for POP. It also allows people to use POP mail, then turn around and use IMAP as an archive without the two clashing).

Definitly look into Webmin to manage your box. It has saved me so much time, and presents a unified configuration interface to all the different Linux distributions.

And to answer what Linux distro to run, go with SuSE Pro if you don't want to download much, and prefer to install off the CD. On the other end of that, go with Debian if you want one of the easiest autodownload and install systems.

I'll definitely agree on the Postfix and Courier IMAP front. I've been using both for quite a while, and haven't had any problems.

As far as which Linux distribution to go with, well, that's somewhat of a religious debate. I'd first recommend Gentoo, then debian, and definitely to stay away from the over-bloated distributions's, like RedHat.

There are some virus scanning programs that work with Postfix, like RAV, or Vexira MailArmor.

Another good choice is XMail. Easy to set up, fast and secure. Also very good support from the mailinglist. No IMAP-support yet, but should be out soon. Also available as a Win32-binary.

Stig

Another vote here for postfix for most uses, but if you want something with a more commercial feel (less mucking about with the command line) I have heard great things about Communigate Pro.