What is the best server distro to use on a system with the following specs?

Pentium 2 400MHz
128MB RAM
10GB HDD

Thanks,

BlackFish

Have a Server/Firewall setup with slackware 11.0 running nicely on a AMD400Mhz, 196Ram, 4gigHD (Laptop) with no problems.

Haven't tried other distro's but could probably setup gentoo or debian for a gui-less server or install a light gui and only run it when you need it so you can throw as much processing power at the server as possible.

There are probably others as well, but I am most familiar with slackware, then debian and lastly gentoo. Slackware and gentoo do seem a bit lighter on older processors though if set up minimally.

Debian will run well on that hardware. Regardless of what distribution you use, the main issue will be what sort of server you're setting up. A file server or a web server with mostly static content? No problem. Heavy PHP scripts, MySQL, and WebMin? You may need more RAM.

What is the best server distro to use on a system with the following specs?

Pentium 2 400MHz
128MB RAM
10GB HDD

OK, that is not a very adventurous spec of computer, but it can still be very useful. I'm writing this on a computer that acts as a small scale home server (and can also be used as a desktop) which has two ~350 MHz Celerons. In single processor mode, it really is a bit slow to do dual duty as a server and a desktop, but then it has somewhat less power than a P II 400.

Have a Server/Firewall setup with slackware 11.0 running nicely on a AMD400Mhz, 196Ram, 4gigHD (Laptop) with no problems.

Haven't tried other distro's but could probably setup gentoo or debian for a gui-less server or install a light gui and only run it when you need it so you can throw as much processing power at the server as possible.

There are probably others as well, but I am most familiar with slackware, then debian and lastly gentoo. Slackware and gentoo do seem a bit lighter on older processors though if set up minimally.

I'd agree with pretty much all of that. I have, in the past, used SuSE as well, so there are other options too. The first thing is to ensure that you have appropriate user interface options: I'd argue on a low power computer like that (or like this) the most important thing is not to be running a heavy GUI. Ideally, you want the option of not running a GUI at all, and you want to be happy administering a linux box from the command line. I have to admit that I'm not fully happy with not having a GUI option, because I'm slower doing everything from the command line, but YMMV.

If you have to have a GUI, make it a light GUI. Otherwise, you might want to up the RAM a bit, because the GUI will eat most of the RAM that you have got, and once the box gets heavily into swapping it will really slow down.

The next thing to do is to make sure that you have control over the install to just install what you want. For example, the standard *buntu install does badly on this, because it does not give you much control (this is less important in its standard desktop application....horses for courses!). Of course, with *buntu, you can, post install, use for example synaptic to trim things down/add things to get what you want.

You also have to think what you want the server to do. Being a firewall isn't that taxing, nor, in general, are most of the command-line applications, but if you expect it to be a fileserver/printserver/router/dns/cache/dhcp server as well, think about how many users you have simultaneously. Probably 1 on a 10 Gig hard drive, given a substantial lump will go just to install linux

So, in my view, the most important thing is to choose something that gives you the flexibility to choose the UI option that you want and the flexibility to just install and switch on/off the services that you want the box to offer. If you get those right, likely any distro will do.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the help and advice,

I want to use this system as a mail server for 4 users none of which will be using the system at any one time (well maybe 2 at the most)

I plan to use fetch mail to download all the emails from my domain providers mail server.

I will probably run this using slackware like you have suggested. Unless you can think of any other distros that run mail servers that you can just put in the CD Drive and install and administer it through a web browser like my linux firewall box

are there any "Off the CD" mail server packages???

Mank Thanks,

BlackFish

Any distro goes, but despite of the one you choose I'd rip it off from anything you don't need. Like X, games, etc...easier done if you just install the programs you need. Well, usually that means some kind of minimum "base" set and then the ones you need, like postfix or apache (or the lite httpd, can't remember it's exact name).

Slackware would be my pick, easy to configure. Massive binary distributions like Debian often just give you a headache trying to strip them down.

I don't know if there's anything exactly like what you're asking for, but I do know that in the Debian 4.0 installer, there's a simple software selection option for a mail server: screenshot

thats pretty close!!!! thanks, I will consider that