Easy set up server distro?

[Truckle]

Hey guys, I've just gotten myself a cheapo server from dell. I want to use it for the following things:

A File Server for the local network.
A Proxy server with web caching
A DNS Server
A Print Server
I will also want to stick a couple of daemons on it that will need web connectivity.
And also possibly a router.

I dont have a monitor to connect to it nor do i have any need for a GUI.
I'm just wondering is their a distro available that will do all this for me with the least amount of tinkering possible. And i would prefer if it had a webUI that i could control most things on the computer for. Failing a ready made distro, a fool proof guide would be as good!

I'd also appreciate any other cool suggestions for things that i could use it for. It is a dual core opteron server with a gig of ram so its probably totally overkill for what i want it for!

So, in short:
Me want handy home server for lots of things
me very lazy
me want distro tht has most of the work done for me!

The network layout i have in my head is:

Modem<-Ethernet->Fileserver/Router/Firewall/Printserver<-Ethernet->Linxsys WRT-54g set as wireless ap<-Ethernet and Wireless->Home Network.

But if some other layout would sut my needs better thats cool.

The home network is a mixed windows / mac network.

The closest thing I've seen to what i want is Gentoo Linux Documentation -- Home Router Guide or Welcome to Express 3.0! - SmoothWall.org but gentoo seems a little bit too complicated for me and I' not sure if smoothwall will be any good for installing additional apps.

I've read some of your newbie guides and I took the "what distro" quizzes and they came up with openSuSE, mandriva and Ubuntu. - Is that the best way for me to go or is there something out there a bit more tailored to my needs?

NOTE:I Have used Ubuntu server before, i used it to set up a file server / torrentflux type thing. But i really know nothing about linux.

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

Take a look at this poll for favorite distro for server as voted by members. You might want to look at the poll for last year, too.

I'd personally recommend taking a good look at Debian.

Have fun with your new Linux server.

[Cabhan]

As a Gentoo user, I feel that it is one of the most adaptable distros out there. However, it is also quite a tinkerer's distro, so if you're not looking for that, you may prefer something like Debian, which is one of the other "do it your way" distros.

I am sure that there is some guide out there to setting up Debian with all the things you need. Also, it is easy to run headless. I would suggest that you setup ssh so that you can remotely login to it for the purpose of installing things and maintenance.

Anyway, beyond that, web interfaces to programs are generally provided by the programs themselves (or some other project), and not a distro. I don't know a huge amount about setting up servers, so I can't make any particular suggestions, but I am sure that someone will come along who can.

[coopstah13]

debian is good for server cuz you can install so little in order to have your server running which saves you space for your files and other stuff, I am debian biased however. Webmin is a nice little tool to use for easy configuration of a lot of your server stuff which you can access from a web browser on a machine on your network, but you'll definitely also want to install ssh server in case you need to get in that command line to do some stuff

[daark.child]

My personal preference is CentOS which is a free Red Hat Enterprise Linux rebuild. If you choose to use it as a server platform, take a look at the Deployment Guide.