What distro for server

Linux and Unix-Like Fedora
1

I want to setup a Linux Server on Win7 / Virtual Box for developmet/testing (LAMP, JavaScript). I am gonna need the following programs installed:

MySQL
Imagemagic
Mencoder
Ffmpeg
Flvtool
Qt-faststart
Ioncube loader
PHP

I know that choice comes down to:

Centos
Fedora
Debian
Red Hat
Ubuntu (somebody told me not to get this one because root is disabled by default, and that it can be changed but it is not recommended)

I also need to figure out if I need to connect from Win7 to Virtual Box Linux through something like Putty within the same computer. I read somewhere that I need two separate computers or a network card for something like that.

Thank you.

2

Hi ,
impo i suggest Debian or , if you have some constrains to adhere to RH like enviroments , Centos.
They are perfect to test your prod environment.

Bye

3

Regardless of the OS, this was a poor advice.
Having the root account disabled by default is a recommended security practice for any OS and particularly servers.