Which one should I choose?
 

Hi,

firstly please accept my apologies if this is the wrong forum for this type of question and also if you judge it to be a lame question :D

I am looking for a downloadable distribution that will handle my needs. They are as follows:

Main box is an XP box - I know, this is a Linux forum but I have one application that will not run on Linux.
2nd box is going to be for Linux - I need it to store files that can be accessed from the XP box. I also need the Linux box to hold a DDS3 tape drive to back-up both the local drives and the XP machine.
I have had experience with SCO Unix, even SCO Xenix so I am not a total babe in the woods but I haven't 'nixed for a while now - I assume Linux brought in a few new ways of doing things too.

Any recommendations?

There are so many competent distros that I can see why you need to ask.

I am not anything close to guru, but: I have been having good luck with Fedora Core III as a MySQL/Apache/PHP5 server on a pair of underpowered old machines. Ubuntu Linux looks promising too. But I think any reputable distro will do the job for you.

Thanks for your reply. I remember from my SCO days that scsi and tape support was quite good - I used to love my old cpio backups, in fact I think I can still type the command line without even thinking about it :) Does linux carry the same support for scsi and tape? Can I access and NTFS drive over a LAN with Linux? Specifically to back it up.

Thanks to any responders.