Comment 78 for bug 97655

Hi everyone,
First off, I'm completely new when it comes to RAID and Linux. But I have an old PC, 4-500GB hard drives and a home network. I would like to setup this computer as a Samba server with RAID5. I have a 40GB hard drive to hold the OS and am ready to get this thing running. I've tried to get things running from reading this post and many, many others with no luck. The closest that I got is having a drive with the following attributes: /dev/md0 (-698707507712.00 B).
I don't know. Is that close? A friend of mine said that I should do a software raid which, from reading this, I've come to understand involves mdadm. I really just lost. I don't care what OS I use, but I'd really like to get into Linux. Another friend said that I should use Ubuntu Server 8.10, but all I found was command line. I've come to realize that he was playing a cruel joke on me. I know Windows very well. But anything server related now-a-days seems to be going with Linux.
Is there a VERY detailed how-to or walk-through that would help me go from where I'm at (or scratch. I really don't care at this point.) to a RAID5 Samba server? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you.