So I am thinking about loading windows server2008 or a Linux distro onto my old computer. I am trying to go into networking/security and think it would be good experience to play around with. I am just not exactly sure on what I could do with it or if it's worth it and figured someone would know. Btw I'm at a wedding real bored so on my phone if this looks shitty lol.

you could install "ubuntu server edition" and install a webserver on it. you could learn some preventions against sql-injections. (or at least how to code php so, that it makes it impossible to inject)

I'm assuming you have little to no experience whatsoever... in which case, all you should/need to do is install Ubuntu as mentioned above, and install (via Ubuntu's wonderful package management system, or using apt if you know how to grok it) apache2 and whatever addons (php, mysql database, etc) you need to get all the functionality you need.

As far as network security is concerned, it really depends on what you intend to do. At a basic level for your users, all you really need is a simple SSL setup. But if you want to look into more advanced things (i.e. people breaking into your system), then that'll require a lot more research and work. That said, unless you're running some super special commercial site that holds tons of sensitive data, you wouldn't really need anything beyond SSL and a good firewall.

install crapbuntu

sudo tasksel

select LAMP server

enjoy

Alright thanks for the input guys. I am probably gonna install a Linux distro due to its lack of cost and ease of access. But if I make a web server what do I do with it? Just get familiar and launch attacks at it and try to secure it best as possible? Trying to get into this just not sure what the outcome will be at the moment, even though setting it up should be a good thing to know anyways.

It depends on the kind of security you need to implement.

Well I don't need to implement anything since the server is just for fun/learning experience. I'm just not quite sure if I should just jump in and mess around with it or if I should be practicing something in particular, also would be down for fun server capabilities just don't know what that would be or if the comp would be able to handle it.

Okay, then it depends on the kind of security you want to learn how to implement.

Lol, yeah that might be down the line a week because I am just practicing the most basic stuff/getting used to using shell script etc. So I ended up going with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS server and installed LAMP and set up IP to be static among a few other things. I want to be able to access/config my server from a remote windows computer. I looked up tutorials on openSSH and whatnot but just can't grasp how or what I need to do this. If anyone has some knowledge, drop it please.

1) you need to be able to find the server over network, as example, can you ping it? or even easier, can you see the website of your server when you use your windows-computer? (it'll depend if you are in the same subnetwork... and on your router configuration (is port forwarding for port 80 enabled? you know the ip from outside? if you want to access your server from outside, you also need to forward the ssh-port to the webserver))
2) you need an ssh deamon on your server
3) you need an ssh client (i recommend putty) on your windows computer