Hi,

I am looking for advice on an easy webserver distro that hopefully has a nice GUI.... NOT bloated as it is only used for multiple webserving...

it should run 5 websites to begin with and have the ability to work with PHP and MYSQL... preferably apache as webserver as the reason for change to linux would be the need for apache to run a new version of php BT tracker who refuses to run on a w2k3...
just to be sure i also want him to be able to run python as i understood that the older BNBT tracker runs on python...

so guys, need advice for a noob... and for somebody who has not the word patience in his dictionnary.... (i know, i know... linux and no patience is a bad begin but sorry i am telling the truth.... ) last rh9 distro flew of my server because it wouldn't let me compile the bnbt tracker... got always errors and got crazy by this.... had nearly one server flying trough the window.... (all this to describe my patience)

if this is an impossible task to advice me something that works out of the box, please let me know too

greetings and a happy New year

TAz

Well, it's kinda tough for something not to be bloated and to have a nice GUI at the same time

As far as "easy" goes, Red Hat offers some pretty impressive graphical server stuff. You could purchase Red Hat Enterprise Linux if you want technical support, warranties, etc. etc. Otherwise, I'd recommend Fedora Core 1. To avoid bloat, make sure you only install one GUI (I'd recommend GNOME since RH's server tools integrate better with it -- but you can choose whatever you want) if any. Make sure you choose custom install instead of server install, as by default server installs won't have a GUI, unless you want a large 5 gig system. So choose custom, don't install anything stupid like games, and just cut the fat whenever and wherever possible.

Only problem with Red Hat is that it can sometimes be difficult to install software during post-install (after you've installed the OS) -- if you don't want to face "dependency hell" you should use a distro that uses APT or something similar by default, such as Debian (not recommended if you're as lazy as you say you are), Ark Linux (the one I use, good for beginners), or Mandrake.

Hope that helps.