I'm planning on having a linux server. I'll tuck this away in a closet. I want to control it via tightvnc. I have used this program in windows and it works great. The purpose of this server is to download a variety of files, file storage for anyone in my lan and outside lan, live movie broadcast in lan, and web hosting. Web hosting will be very small. It will only have a small proxy and some flash games.

The main problem is determining the right os for this server. I have installed gentoo before and it works great. However, it involves too much tinkering and personally I don't think I'm ready for gentoo but I hope to use it in the future. I basically want an os that is very stable, great driver support, fast response time, and supports variety of software (mainly dc++, irc, tightvnc, etc). I don't need extra stuff like openoffice, games, music player, etc. I want to choose the programs I want and don't want.

Here are the specs of my server
Amd Athlon XP 1400+ Mobile
Soyo K7VME Motherboard
Maxtor DiamondMax Ata133 Hard Drive
Western Digital Caviar SE 160gb Hard Drive
768mb of ram
Integrated Video

Go for Debian 'Sarge'. Do a NetInstall.

It's rock solid & stable.

Plus it's 'easy' to handle (if you are used to gentoo it definately wont be a problem).

Have fun.

i was thinking since you mentioned debian, would ubuntu work fine? I heard they released their new server edition. Do you think I should install that?

this test is pretty good http://eedok.voidofmind.com/linux/chooser.html

but i have a slackware server and it runs nicely

Yes Ubuntu would work just like a Debian. It's all debian underneath. I've heard some good stories about Ubuntu server. Slackware is another one for consideration but I'll leave that to you. I run Slackware webserver but my needs are very different than yours...mine is pretty much static content (not to say it won't handle dynamic content).

Tux,