I'm building a mini-itx router/server/flac player. Via 667mhz cpu,80 gigs hdd, 256 megs of ram. The parts arrive tomorrow, and I was wondering, what distro to put on it? I want something secure with a decent package manager, with java support out of the box, as I want to run Azureus on it. vsftpd, apache & some easy to set up caching dns are a must, too. I'm going to rout a 4mbit synchronous fibre trough it, so shorwall is required. I like apt/debian based distros and use gentoo on my main box. support for QoS or something like that would be nice too. could someone just point out some distros that do all the above by default(and works on one of these)?

Asking for something that supports most of that by default is asking a lot. However, my preferences have always lied in Debian. There is a package for general packet shaping, and I think it supports basic QoS. It's called cbq.init; the Debian package is called shaper. I haven't used it, but I've been told it works very well.

Also, I know it's a Linux forum, but OpenBSD is renowned as a gateway firewall and router. PF [OpenBSD's packet filtering subsystem] is very robust, and if I recall correctly, supports QoS natively. It's worth a look. I've also heard it scales well. However, I don't have much experience concerning those aspects of it, so YMMV.