I have a home network of ~6 computers. I want to use an old machine as the computer that would have to stay on all the time, connected to the Internet and sharing the connection with all the other computers.

The computer is a sort of VIA everything-on-board. The processor is a "via samuel II", equivalent of about a Pentium 200-300mhz, and 256MB of sdram.

Most important thing is once everything is installed there would be a minimal need for me to touch the computer. It should just share the internet connection, like a router. Second important is the ease of installation of the distribution and ease of installation of a shared L2TP connection.

What distribution should I try?

Debian if you ask me. I hope you have some expirience in setting routing and firewall rules for the local lan you plan to use the box for.

Good luck!

If you just want your computer to act as a router/firewall, have you considered something like m0n0wall. It runs like a charm on my pII 400mhz.

To add to bfc's comment you can even find a handful of liveCD firewall distros. Check distrowatch.com and livecdforums.com (click on live cd list at top of screen)

Thank you all. Will try m0n0wall as it seems like a perfect solution.

I use m0n0wall on a soekris sbc, it works - I don't touch it much because I don't have to.

If you want more than a simple network device (router, switch, firewall, nat gateway), I would suggest debian as well.

One option not yet mentioned that I have been looking at is vyatta.