If you were building Linux Mail servers...?(what hardware?)

[Ron Henderson]

Hello there, 

I am going to build a few Linux mail servers for testing purposes, and
it is possible that I will roll them into production eventually.  

So what hardware do you recommend? I am looking for 100% compatibility,
and trouble free installation. I was thinking of using AMD MP's. What
motherboard, NIC and RAID controllers just work with no issues?

What Distro? Fedora? RH9, Suse?

Cheers