I'm about to start a project by building a simple file and print server on my old trusty proliant 1600. Before I get started I must say I'm a N00BEE to this and my only experience with Linux has been playing around with Mandrake 10.1 as a virtual OS on my laptop.
The setup I want is to load linux as my host server and then eventually have a Windows 2003 virtual OS running on VMWARE server.
I want to know what host linux OS do people recommend that would do the job and work well with my machine. Specs = Proliant 1600, Dual P3 600, 512MB, 3 18.2GB SCSI hot plug Drives (That I want running RAID 5), Smart Array 221 controller.
What distro will cause me the least grief and recognize all my hardware...especially the array!
Any comments?

The list of host operating systems that VMWare Workstation supports is at http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/d...html#wp1000805. The lists for other VMWare products are also on the site. Those distros will give the easiest install for VMWare, but I have it running here on Slackware 10.2 and Fedora Core 4 so don't be too worried about choosing your distro based on VMWare's requirements.

I haven't installed on hardware similar to yours so I can't comment on that part of it.