I am looking at running a newly built pc on linux, will it recognise 24 gig of ram and will it configure ok with dual xeon cpu’s
The Linux 64bit distro’s will have no problem with 24gb of RAM, and indeed the 32bit distro’s can use up to 64gb as long as the kernel is PAE aware, and the extensions are enabled (there is a performance hit with 32bit Linux and PAE though).
Dual Xeons, no problem… There is a reason that Linux is a force to be reckoned with in the server market 
I have some Dual Xeon servers, been running for ~ 4 years … 100% stable re; SMP …