what i need to set up a small business server and network using Linux

[echocheng]

What i need to set up a small business server and network for a company with few branches in different location if using linux? What OS, system requirements, hardware/software/appliaction i should use to set up this whole network?

We need to run our ecommerce application using PHP, Apache & MySQL by hosting ourselve..now just dunno how to start it..

[lakerdonald]

You can really use any distro as a server, but I'd suggest using either:
1. SuSE
2. Slackware
3. Gentoo
For your server needs. I think SuSE is a valid solution because it is very easy to configure. Slackware and Gentoo, on the other hand, don't have pretty central control centers, but are very stable, just like a server should be. I personally run Gentoo for my Apache/vsFTPd/OpenSSH/rsync server, and I've had no troubles so far (I've had it setup for about 3 months now and not a problem yet!)