Well, it's finally happened: after being a FreeBSD die-hard since 1997, I find myself being forced to abandon the BSD line due to irreconcilable driver issues.

I genuinely like the FreeBSD structure, and would like to keep it, however, I have determined that I absolutely have to switch to Linux to get the functionality I need. The simple question: Which distro do I switch to?

My requirements:
- Servers only: all machines run headless
- I have ruled out RH: bloat. I want as little as possible by default - PERL, development tools, and the base O/S. No 300mb to 2gb of cruft.
- I don't need high speed, but I need extreme reliability
- No support needed for *any* accessories such as sound cards, video modes other than 24x80, etc. The drivers for this should not be there by default.
- I like the FreeBSD layout of config in /etc. I was an SVR3/4 user, and I just hate the 400 layers of rc.xxxx trees.
- I like having the ability to make /usr read-only (/usr/local exempted of course)
- I *love* the master /etc/rc.conf or /etc/defaults/rc.conf idea
- I need extensive PAM support (RADIUS, LDAP, etc)
- More than anything else (the main reason I'm leaving FreeBSD) I need the ability to run OLD hardware: PPro CPUs, 4gb disks on old controllers, etc. FBSD seems to have lost the ability to deal with any ATA parts older than about 60days :-(

So, putting everyone's religion and personal preferences aside, what would you recommend given the above requirements?

Thanks in advance.

If it wasn't for the PAM support Slackware would have been a great fit.

I'm not sure what to recommend for those requirements. Perhaps Trustix or Debian?