Best Linux distribution for a MiniITX server 677

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 04:17:11 -0800, Luis

Your requirements are at odds. buttuming this is a VIA mini-itx with integrated C3 processor - the absolute best distro is Gentoo from a stage one install. There is a wiki which details the steps, but it is time consuming and demands attention to detail. Mine took about a week to install. Gentoo will dowload every piece of software as source code and compile it, specifically optimized for your hardware. It is significantly faster than any 'out of the box' distro. It sounds like you're probably not up to that yet, so go to www.distrowatch.com and do your homework. Also pay attention to the via arena forums. BTW - note that technically, Gentoo meets your requirements, since it would be a kernel (and everything else) compile rather than a recompile.

Security risks are pretty much nil with Linux. I'm running four computers on a DSL connection - up 24-7-365 with no particular precautions. Been doing this for three years with zero malware infectins.

Yes. See Kenton Lee's X-Motif page for a list of X servers for MS. The standard is pretty much Hummingbird's Exceed - but it is quite expensive. There are various products from free to insanely expensive. I favor X manager since it supports multiple X sessions. They have a very good demo version - highly recommended.