Hello everyone, i am planning to turn a old junk computer into
a file server for my residance at school. This computer is
a P3 550mhz, 512mb ram, 16Gb hard drives (2 x 8).
I am looking for a linux that will allow me to do the follwing
serve a webpage using http, serve files from said page, run
php (not essentail), remote control it using VNC (or something else)
from my windows laptop, and download files automaticly.
I of course could put windows on it, but we dont want to think about that...

I have suse running on my laptop in a Virtual PC (mostly just for playing
around with it) And it seems pretty good, but it has many things
that are not needed in a file server, such as games and open office...
and other programs.

What do you guys reccomend for a distro? For a web server? (apache = good?)
You must also realize that i am fairly new to the world of linux, but i am
a very quick learner.

IMO that's not a junk computer, that's pretty hot stuff, except for the small hard drives.

If you are already familiar with troubleshooting things with SUSE, you should stick to SUSE. If you want to use the "best" file server distribution and don't mind learning a new distribution, use Debian stable. I believe Debian stable is the most popular server distribution, largely because it's very simple to set up and maintain and the software releases are VERY well tested.

The Debian linux distribution is unique in that it is maintained in three concurrent branches--"Stable", "Testing", and "Unstable". Software updates are applied to "Unstable" first; those updates which don't break things then get pushed to "Testing". "Stable" is the last in line to get software updates.

This means that Debian stable tends to have much older versions of software, but the upside is that this software is well tested and suitable for use in a serious production system.

Thanks man, that sounds like the kind of thing im looking for, i dont care if it uses older software, all i want is to be able to let it sit in a corner and not break...something i cant trust windows with. :P

And by a junk computer i mean that i built it out of junk, last year i worked at a networking and consulting company, and we had a graveyard where all the dead computers went, and i salvaged parts from many computers, (some from 1995) put it together. It makes a fair amount of noise, has no front or side panel and a wobbly fan, but it works just the same :P.

Now my new question is... i checked out the site and found the downloads, (i see that debian is GNU, which i like, being a fan of The Gimp and using GCC for C programming at school), and i see something about a jigsaw downloader.
Have you used this before? and if so, does it require ports being open? unfortunaly BCIT has like 3 firewalls between me and the net, thus neutering any and all forms of bittorent/filesharing/ect.

Jigsaw downloader? Do you mean the way the net-install downloads only the packages you want?

The small Debian net-install CD is generally the prefered way to install Debian. The CD image is small and convenient, and all of the packages are installed with the latest security updates. I use it more or less exclusively (all of my home servers and workstations run Debian stable).

Firewalls shouldn't be a problem, if you can browse the Internet with a simple DHCP connection. By default, the Debian net-install CD simply establishes a net connection with a simple DHCP request, and then uses it to download packages from Debian's web site (or mirrors).

If it has to go through a proxy server, then you can manually specify it.

Thank you for your help, i have successfully downloaded the net install cd and attempted to install it on my machine the other night, this intallation failed due to user error, i selected the wrong model for my video card, then accidentally selected the wrong packages to install. I then gave up and turned off the machine in mid download (not sucha good idea in retrospect). Other than my error caused by selecting an option before reading the entire page, the installer was very userfriendly. I plan to restart the installer tonight, but only after opening the case and finding out the model of my card. Thank you for your help

If you're not sure what type of video card you have, you can select the "vesa" driver. The "vesa" driver is a generic driver which will work with just about any video card, but without 3d hardware acceleration and some sophisticated customization features. However, it's better than the generic VGA driver in Windows because it CAN handle high resolutions, 24-bit color, and video overlay (for smooth video playback).

If you don't need 3d hardware acceleration, then the vesa driver is good enough. In any case, you can change it later on.

The installer could be more user friendly, and newer versions will get more user friendly. For example, it does NOT tell you that the "vesa" driver is a good choice if you don't know what to select.