if u want something more powerful, try SuSE Linux. I recommend it highly, it's less liteweighted but you can do more.

xboxrulz

Thats actaully what I had on there but it was pretty bloated, kept the hardware chugging alot even with light environments.

The plan is to probably end up going with DSL I think... but I'm currently going to install slackware on it just out of curiosity. I've heard alot about it so want to check it out and figure this is as good a time as any, but yea DSL is seeming like a probably end point

I myself, would try a net-install of debian, and just get the basics thorugh apt, like ALSA and XMMS, XINE, and X server and some lightweight window manager like Windowmaker, and that will take up a relatively small footprint on your hard disk. I'm in the process of doing the same myself with and old Pentium 133 machine, and so far, it's worked just fine for me.

like SuSE, Debian's core is also bloated, because the kernel wasn't built for very slow machines.

xboxrulz

Debian 3.1 (sarge) is pretty damn zippy on my P133 system using its own kernel. If you're just building a media storage box, you don't really need much. Just don't try installing KDE or GNOME and you should be okay. Debian is nowhere near as sluggish as SuSE. SuSE doesn't really give you a much of a choice on what to install, debian is a lot more customisable than SuSE on installation, and you do have the option to just install the base system and grab only the things you need. SuSE installs KDE or GNOME, and whatever other junk Novell wants to throw in, whether you like it or not.

And by the way, xboxrulz, what is your definition of a "slow" machine? Something with a 1GHz processor will have plenty of power to play and store movies and music. If I have a P133 doing the same things with Debian as we speak (I'm watching SLC Punk on it right now), I wouldn't say that a computer with a processor nearly ten times faster is going to struggle with running Debian for doing the same tasks. X, TWM, ALSA, XMMS, XINE, BitTorrent, what more do you really need? That's not really a big load for a computer with the specs he posted.

For me slow is anything under 800 MHz and a machine that takes over 2 min. to boot up. So, my laptop falls under that category, that's why I chose SuSE over Debian, because I find that Debian's kernel isn't as fast as the SuSE's build and I still get an APT-GET repository using RPM instead.

xboxrulz