server advice

[Jim McCloskey <mcclosk@ling.ucsc.edu>]

I'd like to ask your wise advice about setting up a Debian machine as
a web and mail server for a small university department.  I maintain a
small network (6) of linux machines for the department. Cheap hardware,
mostly, but they've been wonderfully dependable. We also have a
departmental server (principally a mail and web server) which is a
Sparc station running an old version of SunOS (4.1).

This machine has got to go. I'd like to replace it with a headless box
running Debian.

This is not a large department (10 faculty, around 30 graduate
students, a couple of post-docs and visitors), and so the demands made
on this server will not be enormous. Budget is also, of course, very
very limited (this is not Harvard).

I've never had to buy a server before. I'd really appreciate some
advice from you wise ones about what kind of hardware you would advise
for a task like this, and where you would go to get it.

Thanks very much in advance,

Jim