deconectat

Router/Server:

Vyatta

The free community Vyatta Core software(VC) is award-winning, Linux-based, open source software providing routing, firewalling, VPN, intrusion prevention, and WAN load balancing services, among others, for your network. When you run Vyatta on a standard x86 hardware system, you’ll create a powerful network appliance that can run circles around proprietary systems.

Basically it’s a Cisco router replacement.

eBox Platform

eBox Platform can act as a Gateway, Infrastructure Manager, Unified Threat Manager, Office Server, Unified Communication Server or a combination of them. One single, easy-to-use platform to manage all your network services.

It’s based on Ubuntu and it has a good web administration interface.

ClearOS

ClearOS is a powerful network and gateway server designed for small organizations and distributed environments. Though ClearOS comes with an extensive list of features and integrated services (see sidebar), the solution is easy to configure thanks to the intuitive web-based interface.

pfSense

pfSense is a free, open source customized distribution of FreeBSD tailored for use as a firewall and router. In addition to being a powerful, flexible firewalling and routing platform, it includes a long list of related features and a package system allowing further expandability without adding bloat and potential security vulnerabilities to the base distribution.

Not exactly linux, but a good router/firewall.

Minimalist:

SliTaz

SliTaz is a free operating system, working completely in RAM and booting from removable media such as a cdrom or USB key. SliTaz is distributed as a LiveCD, and weighs less than 30MB. The system is quick and responsive, clean and robust. SliTaz is simple and intuitive, providing a lightweight, elegant desktop, detailed documentation and easy to use configuration tools.

It’s still in the early stages of development, but it’s a very useful distro.

Puppy Linux

Puppy Linux is a special build of Linux meant to make computing easy and fast.

Tiny Core Linux

Tiny Core Linux is a very small (10 MB) minimal Linux GUI Desktop. It is based on Linux 2.6 kernel, Busybox, Tiny X, and Fltk. The core runs entirely in ram and boots very quickly. Also offered is Micro Core a 6 MB image that is the console based engine of Tiny Core. CLI versions of Tiny Core’s program allows the same functionality of Tiny Core’s extensions only starting with a console based system.

It is not a complete desktop nor is all hardware completely supported. It represents only the core needed to boot into a very minimal X desktop typically with wired internet access.