Just order Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES.

Looking for some ideas on what hardware to put it on.

The server will primarily be a web server but might be used for more in the future.

What kinda servers would you recommend for running RHE ES.

RHEL 3 Update 3 has just been released, so make sure that you get this, and not an older update - it will save you time when updating after the initial installation.

I would advise that you check out Red Hat's supported hardware list at http://hardware.redhat.com/hcl/
If you want support from Red Hat, you generally have to be running on supported hardware, etc.

If you're looking at a webserver that will do dynamic content (Database, php, etc.) I'd advise a dual processor of some variety. If you can go Athlon, you get monster performance, but many Red Hat tools are still only available in the i386 tree, and not in the AMD64 tree.

The more ram you can get, the better, and with prices these days, I'd say just go 2GB and have done.

Try to avoid motherboards with on realtek board ethernet cards - these are CPU hogs. Try and find something with a decent Intel ethernet chipset.

HTH.

FYI Athlons are not 64-bit, Opterons are.

As far as hardware, IBM servers are very reliable, although some of them have proprietary cabling (like the x335, IIRC). Also, IBMs are not cheap. A lot of data centers are buying Dells these days because they tend to be less costly to purchase. I don't know about the reliability of Dell servers, but I can tell you their laptops are pretty bad. Generally you get what you pay for, so I wouldn't be surprised if Dell servers aren't that reliable, but then I don't have any experience with them. Then of course there is HP, but I don't have any experience with those, either.

If you don't need on-site hardware support, then you could go with some kind of white-box unit that are sold through many e-commerce sites. Make sure you get one with some kind of warranty and make sure you're aware of how to get support and how much it will cost.

How much hardware you need depends on how busy your website will be, but chances are a single-CPU 1U box with plenty of RAM (1GB+) will be fine. Like Builder said, if you plan on generating dynamic content, then dual-CPU would be a good idea.

we use nothing but ibm here, we have over 60 x345's and 10-15 x335's never had a glitch and fully supported by RHEL

We have a mixed shop here where I work. Mainly RH and Solaris, but also HP-UX and IRIX. For the majority of our Linux boxes we use IBM x330's & x345's . We probably have close to 500 of these boxes, and I love them. We have pretty constant problems with the boxes that remain on other hardware, specifically compaq, and we're gradually phasing them out.