Ftp server - what distribution to use?

[lauroy8]

Hi,
I have an AMD K6 300MHZ box with 192MB Ram, I want to set it up as an ftp server with ssh. It has a 6gig drive. I will be putting it up on one of my broadband connections. Wondering what distribution of Linux would be best. I'm a bit of a newbie when it comes to linux so be gentle. lol.

Thanks in advance.

[nukes]

I'd have to say debian. For 2 reasons:
1. It doesn't install a GUI by default, and doesn't hog resources.
2. You can get security updates off the net pretty easily.
I wouldn't stick Mandrake or something on that machine, as it would install httpd, bind, pcmciacs and loads of other daemons you don't need, each taking up memory and cpu time that you don't have.
You want it trimmed down, the only 'services' you want running should be ssh and ftpd (and maybe webmin if you want to go that way, it can simplify configuration if you don't know what you're doing)
i.e. my debian server has these processes:

richard@files:~$ ps ax
  PID TTY      STAT   TIME COMMAND
    1 ?        S      0:06 init [2] 
    2 ?        SW     0:00 [keventd]
    3 ?        SW     0:00 [kapmd]
    4 ?        SWN    0:00 [ksoftirqd_CPU0]
    5 ?        SW     0:09 [kswapd]
    6 ?        SW     0:04 [bdflush]
    7 ?        SW     0:10 [kupdated]
    9 ?        SW     0:09 [kjournald]
   78 ?        SW     0:00 [kjournald]
  104 ?        SW     0:00 [eth0]
  172 ?        S      0:00 /sbin/syslogd
  175 ?        S      0:00 /sbin/klogd
  184 ?        S      0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
  195 ?        S      0:00 /usr/sbin/atd
  198 ?        S      0:00 /usr/sbin/cron
  200 ?        S      0:00 /usr/sbin/xinetd -reuse
  202 tty1     S      0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty1
  203 tty2     S      0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty2
  204 tty3     S      0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3
  205 tty4     S      0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty4
  206 tty5     S      0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty5
  207 tty6     S      0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty6
  216 ?        S      0:02 nmbd -a
 1473 ?        S      0:00 ./server -auto
 1477 ?        RN   5145:21 ./think -n 0
 3208 ?        S      0:03 smbd
 4237 ?        S      0:00 smbd
 4836 ?        S      0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
 4838 ?        S      0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
 4839 pts/1    S      0:00 -bash

You want to keep it trimmed down on a system like that, so I would also avoid installing X on it, you could always tunnel through ssh if you need a graphical app anyway.