I am looking for a very stable linux fileserver to serve a terabyte hardware RAID on a current DELL MS2003 server. There are two other 2003 servers that serve applications. This linux server is solely to serve files through netwrok shared folders and possibly run multiple web sites using apache web server.
The clients are all MS XP with user accounts managed by one of the application servers
Stable is very important, GUI is the least important.

I personally would install CentOS 4.4 which is a free version of RHEL4 update 4. I used CentOS at a past work place and found I had minimal work to keep the system up dated and a couple of those systems there, namely the fileserver and a domain controller had uptimes better than a year. Its a great distrobution and has great support.

You just described every major distro. *MOST* of the big ones are very stable.

I personally install opensuse (now 10.2) on my servers, precisely because it is stable, reliable and easy to manage. Rock solid. They do a really good job testing the included apps for stability and compatibility. Excellent RAID support.

EDIT: for even more stability, BUY the SUSE 10 SERVER from Novell. It is their official paid version, which comes with support, in case you run into any snags.

I wasn't impressed with CentOS, but that was an older version (4.3). It had stability problems. The rpm database kept corrupting on me. Not stable. Scratched it.

I recently tested the Ubuntu series, and found it lacking. IMHO They have a bright future, but still have a long ways to go. You will have to chase down too many driver issues. You will manually have to setup the RAID system. The debian archives they depend on contain alot of older software. Not very stable. Reboots sometimes produced different results. Firefox crash too easy. Manually have to restart the firewall. Stuff like that. IMHO not ready for a production network.

I'm sure others will differ with me, thats cool, debate is good and linux is the way to go!

Good luck with your project

Thanks drokmed, rufius.
I use Mandriva 2006, 2007 at home, and have tried unbunto 6.10 but I had trouble with the installation and moved back to Mandriva. I started with RH many years ago, but I have not used it since. OpenSUSE and CentOS will be new to me. I have not used any linux distros for fileservers. I agree that a paid for distro would be appropriate but I am trying to convince the boss to drop the paid for MS2003 and set up a linux fileserver. I will have to dual boot the fileserver and test it out of office hours because it is already live. All tips are useful so thanks again.

AT Mission might be the go:

ATMission:
http://www.atconsultancy.nl/atmission/

Jake