debian or fedora core 5

For a server I'd default with Debian. I've never used Fedora Core 5, but I know from using FC2-4 that the Fedora series is somewhat volatile (in the sense that things change a lot between releases, and the release cycle is very fast).

Debian is mature and well-documented. It has more (and better maintained) packages. I might be inclined to think it's easier to make secure as well.

P.S. Could you not use heavily formatted text in your posts? The default formatting is far more readable.

Another one not on your list but the one I consider to be the best is CentOS.

your probably already sorted, but ubuntu have a very impressive LAMP install (linux, apache, mysql, and php,perl,python). It installs in about 30 minutes, and then you're good to go. Everything is pre configured, so you literally navigate to var/www and start building! Its fantastic. No X interface though, so if you dont mind getting your hands dirty, this is for you .
Jon

I don't recommend putting all your files in /var/www/ turn on virtual hosting (which I think is turned on by default in Ubuntu) and make a folder called "public_html" in your home folder. Put all your web files there, it's a lot more convenient and slightly more secure too.

Out of the two options there, I would also choose debian BTW.

I find ubuntu/debian to be the easiest option, especially for a beginner. The online community support is extremely helpful!

pnelson wrote: The online community support is extremely helpful!

Absolutely agreed! The support community for Ubuntu is brilliant. There's a lot of talk about how Red Hat have made it clear they are no longer interested in the community opinion on how the distro is developed. They will now only listen to their corporate clients, which is their prerogative, but makes Fedora a bad choice for a user who wants to feel like they're part of something. If there's no community, there's no community support either.

Ubuntu concentrates on building the community so if you're stuck, you always have someone to turn to. This is what's making a lot of Linux newbies start with Ubuntu.

There's another distro with an excellent support community: Gentoo. Problem is that Gentoo isn't for the faint hearted. If I knew what I was doing, or had a couple of months free to learn, then Gentoo would be my weapon of choice.

I tried it once, took a couple of weeks (every evening), compiling and configuring only to find the damn kernel was corrupt so the thing wouldn't boot. Possibly shouldn't have been trying to build it on a laptop though as they can be a little quirky to say the least. I gave up thinking that maybe I'm just too stupid to master the ways of the Gentoo at the moment, but one day I will!

I am using fedora. its excellent. had no issues with it what so ever. there is also alot of support available if i did mess something up which i cant fix myself.

debian all the way. apt-get is by far the best package management system. Not only that but the 2.6 kernel with debian simply cannot be beat and you stay away from those ugly redhat kernels as well as the fact that debian doesnt install every single service under the sun which in the end could compromise your system.