RE: which distribution to choose

> > and Mandrake 10.1 Community Edition available at
> > http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3#10.1c.  
> 
> I would recomend go with the Official version of MandrakeLinux 10.1. Do a 
> network install using the mini-iso (8MB) available in any mirror, like this 
> one:
> 
> ftp://ftp.proxad.net/pub/Distributions_Linux/Mandrake/official/10.1/i586/install/images/boot.iso

OR... use BitTorrent and save the ftp bandwidth:
Mini-ISO:
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/torrent/Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Mini.torrent
3 Disk ISO:
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/torrent/Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download.torrent
DVD ISO:
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/torrent/Mandrakelinux-10.1-Official-Download-DVD.torrent

If you are going to use Mandrake though... perhaps you may want to look
at their "Multi-Network Firewall"
Product Page:
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/mnf
Download (ftp, no BitTorrent link)
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3#security

> > Additionally, both distributions support both a manual and an automatic
> > update system -- manually with up2date and automatic with the yum daemon
> > for FC3 and either a manual or scripted/CRON'ed urmpi command for Mandrake.
> 
> If you know Debian, yum and urpmi are apt-get-like tools.
> 
Except that in my experience they do not resolve the dependencies nearly
as well. URPMI is better than yum with the fedora legacy project.... but
IMHO apt and swaret (slackware) beat them both hands down...

As someone mentioned earlier... Devil Linux is pretty cool...
Let's say you are running Devil... someone gets in and makes changes...
well no worries... you have a non-writable CD... no changes are
permanent...
http://www.devil-linux.org/home/index.php

A *good* firewall package

If you are going to go with live-linux distros... have a look at SLAX
http://slax.linux-live.org/ It is Slackware based which basically means
that everything is as simple as possible. This does not mean graphical
management tools galore like some distros... this simply means that
everything works and is simple to setup with minimal editing to a few
text files.

The firewall consists of your own "rc.firewall" file in /etc/rc.d/

Basic Example:
#!/bin/bash
# Basic script to keep the server secured

## Flush the Tables so changes will be recognized (without duplicates)
#iptables -F

## Default policy to drop 'everything'
#iptables -P INPUT DROP
#iptables -P FORWARD DROP

## Allow established connections and programs that use loopback
#iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
#iptables -A INPUT -s 127.0.0.0/8 -d 127.0.0.0/8 -i lo -j ACCEPT

## Allow offered service clients to connect to ethernet interface

#Secure Shell
#iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -i eth0 -j ACCEPT

#HTTP
#iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -i eth0 -j ACCEPT

#Netbios for Samba
#iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 137:139 -i eth0 -j ACCEPT
#iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 137 -i eth0 -j ACCEPT
#iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 138 -i eth0 -j ACCEPT

#BitTorrent Ports
#iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 6969 -i eth0 -j ACCEPT
#iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 60003 -i eth0 -j ACCEPT

#Webmin
#iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 10000 -i eth0 -j ACCEPT
#end script

Best of luck...