Free distributions for network-attached storage [LWN.net]

The Linux community has no shortage of general-purpose distributions that can be made to serve almost any need. But many Linux deployments are not on general-purpose machines; often the owner has a more specific objective in mind. One such objective is to put together a network-attached storage (NAS) box. A general-purpose distribution can easily be used in such a setting, but there are also several specialized distributions that make the task easier. This series is a look at a few such distributions.

The articles in the series are:

OpenMediaVault, a Debian-based distribution focused on small deployments using the ext4 filesystem.
Rockstor; this distribution, based on CentOS, makes the advanced features provided by the Btrfs filesystem available on small-server systems.
FreeNAS: not actually a Linux distribution, but still a free NAS-oriented system with some interesting features of its own.
EasyNAS, an openSUSE-based distribution built around the Btrfs filesystem.

Unless a surprise distribution comes along in the near future, this series is complete at this point.