I have a server, 64mb RAM, 233mhz PII with 3x 2.1GB hdd's, cdrom drive and LAN card.

Can anyone reccomend a distro which will be suitable for turning this machine into a file server (SMB or FTP) for my network. It must have a GUI - although this doesnt nececirally mean X, a web-based admin tool is fine.

(I know how to get around the shell and how to use vi but im not a guru)

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Hmm... I think Ubuntu server edition would be the easiest, and that would run on your computer. If you want a highly optimized install, use Gentoo or Slackware. Debian would also work. Of all of these, Gentoo Minimal is the hardest to install, with Slackware being hard, but not if you follow the instructions.

It's your choice, and your computer isn't overly slow; choose your favorite distro, and then trim it down a little!

yeah i was thinking that as i like APT for package management. I think i have ran sarge on the box before so i t should be fine.

I think I will need the "Alternate" ISO image as on the website it saysit is for servers with less than 192 meg of ram.

Also, with Ubuntu can i choose which MBR to install GRUB on ? as I have been stuck to Fedora and CentOS before as other distros try to install GRUB to hda but the server only boots off of sda.

It also needs to support raid (whichever one it is to combine disks) or LVM as i have 3x 2.1gb HDD'S and i dont think the whole os will fit on one

Debian unstable/testing maybe?
I have decided that i dont like Ubuntus sudo for a server....

On my 1ghz, 324mb RAM laptop it reports 16% CPU usage and 58mb RAM used for a basic GNOME desktop so it should run

Gonna be a pain in teh ass though as i cant netinstall cos the NIC is kinda buggy sometimes it works if u wiggle the cable but if it ever gets probed or asks for a new IP it alwats goes off again

ok tried centos 4.3 and it runs great!

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