My boss has set me up a project to setup a server in our shop (computer repair shop), we have had quite a range of servers in the past, started off with RedHat Linux running a basic web and FTP server, however we could not seem to download at any more than 50K/s over the LAN, so we lost hope in that and changed to Windows Small Business Server 2003, again running a basic Web and FTP server. After the HDD failed we changed to XP Pro running a web server using IIS, but now the boss wants more. I have been given a project by the boss to setup up the following:

An intranet site containing all the basic tools, AVG.... etc (that I can do without problems)

A repairs database with a remote web interface to contain details such as customers phone numbers, job history etc, it would be nice if the system could automatically assign a number/code for the job. It will also need to be easily searchable by job no, customer name, etc

This is where I get stuck though, I have no experience with databases at all, I would like to run LINUX, however I have no idea which distro to use. I was thinking I could use PHP to draw the information from the database and MySQL to hold the information. I will obviously have to learn PHP if that is what I am to use, if this is the case a site with some nice tutorials would be useful.

I could be looking at this wrong, so if there is an easier way about this please let me know,


Cheers

James