What is the best flavor of Linux for a home file (media) server?

Question

I'd like to setup a Linux server to serve media files (video and music) to my other computers in the house.

Some requirements:

1. Has to be able to network with the Windows computers in the house
2. Has to be able to shut off at a certain time, or when I press the front button of the computer
3. The more power features the better: Wake up, shut down mostly
4. Don't want to be entering credentials each time I'm trying to access files

And maybe anything else that I'm not thinking of.

Answer 1

If you're looking to use your computer as a NAS server, why not try FreeNAS?

Wikipedia:

FreeNAS is a free network-attached storage server, supporting: CIFS (Samba), FTP, NFS, rsync, AFP protocols, iSCSI, S.M.A.R.T., local user authentication, and software RAID (0,1,5), with a web-based configuration interface. FreeNAS takes less than 64 MB once installed on CompactFlash, hard drive or USB flash drive. FreeNAS is currently distributed as an ISO image and in source form. It is possible to run FreeNAS from a Live CD, with the configuration files stored on an MS-DOS-formatted floppy disk. There is also a VMware disk image available.

If not this, I'd just use whichever flavour of linux you're comfortable with.

Answer 2

This all seems pretty straight-forward... any distribution should be able to do this. Might as well pick something easy to use like Ubuntu.

Answer 3

Low power consumption and noise might be a consideration. There are some interesting 'appliance-like' embedded linux servers that might be worth a look. I have one of these, which is an interesting design, and mostly works just like a debian server - http://www.excito.com