The R FAQ is very helpful about installing R on various Linuxes, but doesn't
seem to discuss the advantages of one distribution over another.  I am new
to Linux (though not to Unix!), and would appreciate some guidance from
those with experience.

I plan to set up a headless Linux x86 server for the sole purpose of running
64-bit R. Are there reasons to prefer some Linux distributions over others?
I have no preference between binary and source distributions of R, as along
as they are complete, up-to-date, easy to install, and easy to update.

I would be accessing the server through my Windows desktop using Emacs/ESS.
What is the recommended way to display plots on the desktop? An X server? A
display Postscript server? Something else?

My data come out of a DBMS; do some Linux distributions have better ODBC
drivers than others?

Thanks,

            -s

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