Sofar what I have done sofar is working great! ok the next major problem is printing. Nobody on the planet has a way to print to my Okidata C5150n printer. I spent all morning yesrday tring to get Ghostscript workaround to work but it hangs loading fonts. haven't tried not using the included fonts with it yet.
I get it to communicate with my actual printer but never finishes spooling a test print.
My Okidata is really a nice printer for the bucks...but may not replace it with one in the future due to the lack of basic Linux support. It uses a proprietary emulation called Hiper-C. There ar no PostScript drivers available for it...so I can't even lie to the computer to use someone elses driver. I even called OKI Support and basically got the run around.
My resolution is to print to the PDF driver and save it as a file I can print across the network from my workstation...same effect just not as automatic. Also a good way to save documentation in general so it's not a total wash. The PDF driver that comes with Ubuntu is capable of creating PDF files...and works.
I need to get yet another KVM switch one of these days. I've eyeballed a D-Link model that supports high resolution video and keyboard, mouse, and sound. The cavet is I also need to get a USB mouse and keyboard to implement it. My Ubuntu server flat out refuses to use a KVM with PS/2 type connections for some reason. It's always been questionable anyway. I think there is a voltage issue on the port or something from the symptoms I've seen over time.
Not sure how much energy I want to keep putting into it just to serve as a file server...but basic functions like printing and having a keyboard and mouse that work with the scree resolution where I like it is kind of minimum requirements that aren't being met at this time.