Hello: I would like some help getting into Linux. I have an IBM thinkpad with a Pentium 133 and 40 megs of memory but only a 1.4 meg hard drive. I would like to get Linux onto this hard drive, but have NO idea what to do. The problem is that the computer only has a 3.5" floppy. I would like to be able to run open office and some sort of internet engine through the PCMCIA cards I have. I tried Fdisk to set up a small section of my hard drive to copy installation files to, but it would not recognize my D: drive. Go slowly; I'm new.

I personally had nothing but fustration using Linux on old machines with little memory and small hard drives. You will be limited to command line only and it will frankly be no fun. Go to a local computer show and pick up a PII or PIII with at least 128MB and a 4 GB drive. You should be able to get one for $50 or so. Then go download SUSE or Fedora Jimi_l

do exactly as he said except dont downlaod fedora or suse. I recommend Vector linux or Slackware. (Jimi there is no chance that a new user can cut out all the crap services suse and fedora has by default. better to give them something that will perform.) eskiled ps. open to arguement though jimi www.linuxteens.com

Why can I run windows 98 on the system that I have (okay...it crashes ALL the time) but not Linux? I am not afraid of the dos prompt, but I am a new user.

ahh to have the power of a 133mh, 40 meg laptop. some one gave me a 75mh, 24 meg 701c laptop with diskette & 11" screen and a 540MB HD- which I replaced with a 6.1GB drive. I run mandrake 6 + Xwindows on it, and, with a pcmcia card, can get onto the net. The smallish drive and no CD is a tough problem for anyone with less than a few years of Linux experience Jimi_l/eskiled have the best answer in your case. PS: How I did it - Removed 6.1GB drive from laptop packaging, connected it to my desktop (requires an ide connector adaptor). Installed Linux on drive. Repackaged and moved drive to laptop. Used toms linux-on-a diskette (www.toms.net/rb/) to finish the job. An external USB hard drive on desktop would make the hard drive setup easier - maybe not that much

What you need to do is find a good how to, try google. With the right expertise you could probably cut down and run just about any distro. No chance of running KDE or Gnome but you might just get away with fluxbox (48Mb min apparently) if not it's text only. Also try Damn Small Linux (50Mb live CD), I havent used it for over a year but I seem to remember a good how to in there forums for installing it on an old machine with small HD and no CD drive. I ran it on a P120 with 64Mb (then upgraded to a P166 Oc'd to 200 and 192Mb)

My only counterpoint would be that SUSE and Fedora both have absolutely SLICK installers. For me this made the install almost <gasp> Windows easy!! Try a bunch of distro's, they are free afterall :) Jimi_l