Linux distribution for a programmer's private server

Question

I'm going to get a low-end old (CHEAP!) computer to run non-stop as a little server for Subversion, Mercurial, Trac and maybe a little other things 99% for myself - performance isn't a concern. It'll probably have a 1 GHz P3/P4/Celeron, 256 MB SDRAM, 30 GB IDE HDD or something like that, any video card so I can hook up a monitor. I could get about setting Windows Server on it, but I feel that's too much of an overkill. All I need is to access my code from my laptop, desktop, maybe remotely, same for a wiki, bug tracker, etc. so I feel that a light Linux distribution will be more than enough. I want to have a GUI, preferably with Xfce, but I don't mind IceVM or any other light GUI - it doesn't have to be pretty, I just don't like CLI as a Windows user. However, the advantage of Windows would be that I already have tons of experience setting it up and can directly use Remote Desktop to get to it and AFAIK I have access to Home Server that "just works" - unless you can suggest me a distro made for home servers.

So the question is, what Linux distribution do you think is best for my needs? Or should I just strap Windows Home Server on it?

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

I would suggest Ubuntu. Setting up/installing applications is just a breeze with apt-get.

Answer 2

It doesn't sound like you have demanding requirements at all, so I'd probably go with something easy to set up. I believe Ubuntu is pretty good in this regard.

You might also want to look into VNC, which is a bit like a free, cross-platform Remote Desktop.

Answer 3

Having used Debian for nearly seven years, I think it will suit your task very well. Besides, I find it much more convenient to manage than Red Hat based distributions (such as Scientific Linux, Fedora or CentOS).

EDIT: Ubuntu (which another poster has suggested) is essentially an advanced Debian customization towards desktop use. Ubuntu heavily relies on Python scripting and generally consumes more resources than Debian. I believe that original Debian fits the job you described better.

Answer 4

CentOS - a free version of RedHat Enterprise Linux which is the most common server Linux distribution.

Answer 5

I have been using Debian for very similar purposes. This too has a gui application install manager.(however, not everything I 've installed was available through the manager, then just used the command line)

I've also been using red hat at work for host development machine. I might consider Fedora for a home server, as there appears to be lots of support on the web for red hat/fedora.

BTW I use windows for most things, and just vnc on to the linux machine.