What verison of Linux do I choose???
 

I need a free version of Linux to run as a VPN server, DHCP server and a firewall. I'm attempting to do all of this for free. Any suggests? This box will sit between a Cisco 1720 router and a NT 4 sp6 domain.:confused:

i would suggest doing a bit of reading in the distro forum, as the "what version should i use?" question is quite a common one.

Opinions on Linux distros are the same as anything else in the Tech world. You will run into those that believe their distro is the best, and the others are not worthy of attention. For examples see Mac vs PC, FreeBSD vs any Linux distro, Windows vs Linux, Microsoft vs Open Source, CDs vs Vinyl.

Basically, we can tell you what we think is the best distro, but with Linux each distro offers something the others don't and what I like about one may be what you despise. You have to first determine what you want to get out of your Linux enlightenment and then do some research. Pick a couple of distros and try them out. I'm willing to bet most of the people on this board are not using the first distro they tried, or at least tried several before they went back to their original choice.

With that said, good luck. There is a lot of information out there. The only promise I can offer is that by doing the reasearch yourself the expierence will be a better one than that of having one of us tell you what distro you need.

This may be a good place to start. http://www.linuxiso.org/

Now that I have said that.

Try Slackware! :)

Netizen

Smoothwall is what you are looking for. Express is free and does this, plus IDS, etc.

http://www.smoothwall.org