Alright, I'm a web / multimedia designer who is very quickly becoming a web developer out of necessity. I plan on setting up a test server in my LAN at home to work on projects. Chances are the server is going to be on the slow side, it will be whatever I can get my hands on for free or near free. But since I will be the only one on it that shouldn't be a problem.

Anyway, my question is what do people think is the best distribution to use as a web server? I plan on loading MySQL and Apache, and I will be using PHP. I run Fedora Core on my laptop, which is fine for me, but I want something a little less bleeding edge for the server. Plus its a chance to play with a new distribution which is always fun. Thanks in advance!

Any distro will due. Slack has a very minimal install but has all of those requirements. I imagine Fedora without the gui would do also. Personally, I like gentoo but that is a long compile for just a simple home webserver so my second favorite is Slackware.

A number of web hosts will run cut down versions of FC3 or FC4. Running a similar system means you're not (usually) going to have compatibility problems with different versions of PHP, MySQL, etc. However, as with the previous poster, Slackware or Debian are very good choices for a home environment like you're after - both easy + quick to install, stable + secure, and simply to run. But, as with most things, pretty much any distro would do if you didn't install the extra crap that's not needed.

Thanks musicman_ace and fouldsy. I think my plan is to give Slackware a shot and I'll fall back onto a stripped down version of Fedora if I run into trouble (since I have the most experience there). Either should work just fine for me. Thanks again!

I run Mandriva, and as soon as Apache, PHP, Perl... are installed, they're all ready to be used.
In the end of the day, though, you'll make your own choice

Yves.