hello,
my 3 systems that should run a linux:

1.
p3 750mhz, 256mb ram, dawicontrol ide raid controller 2x80gb raid0, 2xethernet, ati rage128 4mb, dvd-writer
this should act as an fileserver for me. apache, ftpserver, samba, webmin, ssh an so on should run. i'm not sure if i need a x window. i'm not so familiar with all the comands in the terminal.
and it should act as a router with NAT.
this pc is attached one side to the internet, and other side to
my pc:
2.
notebook fs amilo D7830, P4 2.8gh, 1gb ram, 60gb hdd, firewire, usb20, wlan pcmcia card (allnet, 54mbit)
this notebook is my place to work on it. so i definitly need x. but what manager? i tried several. gnome seems to be ok. but i'm not realy familiar with the differences and commonalities.

3.
amdk6 500mhz 192mb ram, 80gb hdd + 60gb hdd, ordinary 4mb video card, usb, isa sound card
this is another server, but should give a place to surf and check email and so on. main function: server (samba, ftp, http, ssh, ....)
but you can go there, put the sreen on and surf, check mail, whatch some pictures and things like that.

what distros i should use for every purpose.

thanks in advance
mht

Well.... hard to tell for you distro is just a matter of taste.
My choice would be to put debian on the 1, I really like to work with Debian as router/server and their tools are great on command line. Plus the Debian apt package manager are great for a server. But it's my own taste, maybe you will hate it.

You probably want to run Fedora (aka Red Hat) or Mandrake on this one. I would recommand Fedora, especially if you run Debian on the 1, as you can use the same "tool" to manage packages (so you won't have to learn 2 different tools). A lot of people like Mandriva (Mandrake) as desktop too. I really Like Gentoo too but it's a bit... hmmm... special, way harder and longer to install but some cool feature, but you probably want to stick with Fedora or Mandrake.

3 is up to you. Half server-half workstation... Anything that has good package management would be good here. Pick one at random?

hi,
thanks.
i have to say fc4 is still running on my notebook. but i dont like it. i did some changes to the network utility because of the pcmsia wlan card. after that no way back to ordinary lan. i can reach the next router but not beyond. i'm behind a big firewall/proxy within one segment.
MC? where is it? i love this tool for file management in a terminal.
and things like 'ifconfig'? where are they.
its like i'm totaly fool. not realy handy....

before that i used a bit suse. 81 for the 3rd, 92 for the notebook. YAST is yust ;-) fine!
more handy an runs fine (8.1) on this older machine. but its a bit too old i think. no webmin, no firefox and things like that.

next problem for the 2nd: the dawicontrol dc100 ide raid controller. only a suse81 runs so far, but when i plug a usb pendrive, machine crashs and never start. maybe a hardware bug.
for other distros i have to compile a source driver. but i can not realy handle this. a lot of errors and thats too much for me.
i'm a bit desperate right now, because i got a controller and two 80gb disks laying around and not working.
i realy wanna put a linux system to this server. not windows, not again.

linux is great, especially for network purposes. but so far i'm not an expert in typing in comands.

thanks alot for all opinions.
mht