I want to build a minimal VM (in Hyper-V on Windows 2008 R2) that runs HAProxy to load balance a bunch of web services.
Is there a preferred Linux distribution that provides a small, yet functional environment from which to build the HAProxy balancer. And obviously, the Linux distribution would have to work in Hyper-V.
In my experience, any of the common distributions should work fine. I've used Debian and Ubuntu Server, but that's only because it's what I'm familiar with. That's probably the best answer - stick with what you know.
If you don't have a ton of linux experience, Ubuntu Server or CentOS are probably decent choices, as they have good documentation and package managers.