Hi, I'm in the process of building a pc out of old parts with the intent on it only being used as a netwrok storage device, I'm building it it inside one of my drawers and one I have it set up and running I don't intend to have a keyboard, mouse or monitor attached to it... I want to be able to switch it on and have it share a couple of hardrives through the router its attached to, it doesn't need to do anything else, if I could VNC to it to keep an eye on it from time to time that would be a bonus... is there a stripped down version of linux that I could use to do this? it doesn't even need to have a gui the simpler the better

Thanks

If I were you I'd take a look at FreeBSD, a standard install takes about 300Mb.
http://www.freebsd.org
And by the way, it's not Linux it's UNIX =)
//Danne

The problem is not the OS. The problem is the hardware. MOST motherboards and video cards are NOT ok with you not having anything plugged into them when you turn the machine on. They WILL fruit out and keep the machine from booting unless there's a keyboard, mouse, monitor plugged in. Well, the monitor might not be such a necessity but the keyboard is for darn sure.

In many bioses you can set the halt level.
//Danne

yeah most bios have a setting to ignore keyboard errors... the 1 I'm using for this is at least 5 years old and it has it... I'm currently running xp on it to make sure everything is ok think I'll take a look at FreeBSD and see what it has to offer

Where I work, all our linux servers do not have a keyboard, mouse or screen connected...

ET

The best way to proceed would be to download some LiveCD and check if they boot up without problems. Then install the one which has the least problem.

archlinux
after install and configuration, it will run headless as will most OSs. you'll need to set the halt level as DiiZzY suggested.

Actually... I've had Linux servers for over 5 years now (I think I have my 6th server now, always building new pcs from parts eh) and I didn't use any monitor, keyboard or mouse for 4 years. I got a KVM switch last year, but before that time, it was just a tower with a powercord and some ethernet cables....

This always worked fine. I always set my BIOS not to halt on any error.

Using your LAN, controlling the computer through VNC and SSH is done easily. The Linux VNCserver (XVNC) is really really fast. Just install some lightweight windowmanager (I use IceWM) and let your VNC server start that on startup. Works like a charm!

Damn small linux comes to mind. It comes as a live cd (basically a cut down version of Knoppix), but it has a hard disk installer.
If you really really don't care about user interface and whatnot and just want something to keep your machine's brains together, Coyote linux may fit the bill.