vent server

im thinking about cleaning up all my old windows 98 pcs and reloading os and turning them into servers for vent. what specs do you recommend for minimum specs in hardware. and what os do you recommend. i was either going to run xp or a server os.
another thing is i will be cleaning up about 3 pcs so would it be worth running linux makeing a supercomputer useing ssh and pvm?

Not worth making a "supercomputer" unless you have some specific plans for it, as far as the older PCs just go use a stripped down linux distro you like. No need to use a GUI either if you want to save as much resources as possible. Personally I prefer CentOS for my server needs but if you're more of a newbie with Linux I recommend you take a look at Ubuntu or one of it's variants (if you really want to focus on speed you migh be interested in lubuntu | light Ubuntu for faster computing).