I have some experience with RH distros but am far more comfertable on debian and when it comes to finances, I would rather be in comfertable territory.

Hmmmm, I have no experience with Linux Coin. First question would be is it lightweight enough and how much stuff do I need to remove?

I have had another attempt at my build today. Starting off with base Ubuntu Server install and am running this install right now:

aptitude install --without-recommends xubuntu-desktop

This approach looks like it will net me alot more space to play with on my 3.75GB virtual drive.

During the server install I also manually partitioned up the virtual drive leaving only 200MB boot, 3.7GB root(encrypted LVM) and no swap. I figure seeing as it is a virtual machine I can just increase RAM if ever I have swap issues and it should run fairly light anyway.

I will report back shortly on how the GUI install went.

JG