If you're thinking Debian, I would go with Ubuntu myself. Ubuntu has a 6 month release cycle, where Debian has...well it's Debian so... :) Ubuntu is much easier to train someone new to Linux administration on as well. Lots of nice GUI stuff, where as it's all command line in Debian. For building from source, I reccomend using stow. Handy little perl script for managing software installation/uninstallation under /usr/local. I just recently setup Ubuntu on a Dell PowerEdge server, and it was slick. Runs great. The Ubuntu core packages don't always have everything you need, so expect to use universe and multiverse trees as well. -- Andrew S. Zbikowski | http://andy.zibnet.us A password is like your underwear; Change it frequently, don't share it with others, and don't ask to borrow someone else's.