[LAU] Simple monitor system: which distro?

[Gabriel M. Beddingfield]

Hi Andrew,

On Fri, 30 Jul 2010, Andrew Bryant wrote:

> It will need to boot into a script that starts all the above.

I recommend doing this as a startup script and having it run 
as a daemon.[1]

> It would be nice if it ran on elderly hardware - a PIII/733 with 512MB is 
> available.

FWIW, I have a "main recording system" that is PIII/500 with 
512 MB, running blackbox for the WM.  :-)  So, there 
should be no problem with this hardware.

> I am expecting to modify meterbridge, so the existence of a binary package is 
> not important for that application.  The others, however, will be standard.
>
> Any thoughts which distribution would be the best starting point?

Whichever one you're comfortable with.  Any linux should be 
able to fit this bill.  I think it's easy to admin a 
headless Debian system from the command line -- but I'm also 
a command line junkie.

Several of the packages you listed aren't well-adopted.  If 
I were you, I would just compile them myself.  Sometimes, 
even if a binary package is avail. it will be out of date. 
Most of those packages will also compile in about 5 minutes 
or less.

-gabriel

[1] http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-write-sys-v-init-script-to-start-stop-service.html