Hi all!

I have an computer I don't use and want to use it as a server at home.

The specs for this computer is:
700MHz Duron
512MB DDR PC2700
On-Board Gbit LAN
10Gb IDE system disk
250Gb IDE Data disk

I really want to trow the system disk out and run linux from a USB-Stick or CF-card if possible? I have 256, 512 & 1GB USB-Sticks and a CF to IDE adapter with a 64 CF-CARD if linux get's small enough

This is mainly going to be used for torrent downloading (must have web interface) web server and file server for windows machines. And if possible, stillpictures from webcam but I don't really need this but it would been fun

So, does anyone have any experience with a small linux distro for a small server

I use arch linux for a file server, i love it and reccomend it to everyone ,regardless of their intended goal :P.

Really for what you want the distro is fairly irrelevant, the packages you use are the crucial part, ie. what web/ftp server will you use on top of Linux? will you want a graphical interface (i run a headless server with no X fine and control it via SSH). you WILL want some distro with package management as my understanding is, the types of services you want are the most commonly exploited and patched. To be honest, if you're lookign at putting it on 1 GB or less you will want something like DSL that can fit on like 50MB (dont forget you'll be serving web and ftp content off the space too). I don't really know your level of Linux experience, but people often go for Debian or slackware or anything fairly unbloated from the get go (alot of people use fedora core but i don't reccomend that to people :P)

As for a bittorrent server, do you mean you want to run a tracker, or you want to run your client on it? for the tracker, azureus has an inbuilt tracker (you will need X and JRE for it) that is controllable via a web interface. For a lcient, you can use a console one and login via SSH, nice and simple.

Hope that helps, your question is pretty broad