aspiral

Knowledge is not just information, it's one of those fuzzy humanistic things where cultural practices, ethical frameworks and individual talent allow some individuals to apply information more effectively than others. As an example consider Santiago Calatrava; there are probably several thousand people who know as much or more as he does about the history and engineering principles of building bridges, but he adds unique value to the projects he is given that would be difficult if not impossible for another engineer to duplicate.

The knowledge economy is a bit of a misnomer because by it's very nature knowledge creates multiple measures of value, not all of which can be measured in terms of _valuta_. It's also problematic in that knowledge is embodied in individuals, and while you can build information systems that support it's cultivation in individuals, it is not possible to treat knowledgeable individuals as interchangeable plug-compatible components.

It really depends on what the server is being dedicated to.

Xen and any other virtualization comes out of your overhead costs, unless you have a specific need for it (like being able to migrate seamlessly to EC2) don't bother.

For what you are planning to do Ubuntu server edition would probably cover most of your needs and give you enough support to quickly resolve problems.

Don't bother with softraid, if your data isn't important enough for you to afford a dedicated RAID controller and the disks to go with it; you can live with the possibility of losing everything up to the last backup (you will be taking backups).