I am sure this has been asked may times however had a look around and nothing quite fits my bill however here goes.

I currently have a Windows machine for my work and test be of Web sites and databases , for which I need and use XAMPP (Apache, PHPMYADMIN, MYSQL, PHP,Filezilla Server and a mail client)

However in my shed I pulled toget an old Dell 900mhz I think with 512 ram.

Basicly what I was lookign to do was install an O/S on this and stick it up in the loft out of the way jsut so I an connect to it to test my web sites etc. and possible add an external HDD to it as a backup server and FTP server.

Is there a good suggestion on what I could use for this, I tried Clark Connect on it but I believe they are now charging for the privalige now?

Basicly a O/S where on on PC I can got to the i address in the broser and do everything I need, so no need for a fance GUI

Or would I be just as well sticking Win 2k on it.

You could try Ubuntu 6.06LTS Server Edition. One of it's default install options is "Install a LAMP server"

Get's pretty much everything up and running for you, and most anything else is only a "sudo apt-get install" away

My would be Debian. Can you get it online? You could use the net install and just install what you want.
If not just put slackware on it, all you would need is the first cd I think.

I use Debian for my web server machines as well. a base install will give you just the basics (nothing at all extra they don't even assume that you want SSH) then you can add in ssh, apache, mysql, php, etc to your spec.. Makes for a nice clean server.