See, I have this old laptop.. It was bought like right when Microsoft released Windows 98. It only has a 6 Gig hard drive, and it's slow as hell, even though I've replaced the RAM. It's not good for much of anything, it's just sitting on my piano bench collecting dust. I'd like to mod it and make it really nice, and install a good looking OS that's not Windows.. I'd like to do linux, but I've tried it before with Four diffrent types of linux.. Red Hat, Fedora(I think?), Mandrake, and I dont remember the fourth.. I only got one to install and it was SO slow. The computer has a sticker on it that says "Made for Win98", so I figured 'screw it..' and reinstalled Windows 98. It's slow, and ugly at that. So my question is this: If not linux, what is a really good, fast, small and efficent OS that's free, and very customizable? As long as it's atleast free and fast, I'll be happy.

Fedora and Mandrake are far more suitable for newer hardware than yours and they tend to ship with lots of services starting at boot time by default. A distro like slackware or debian would be far more suitable, perhaps FreeBSD if you don't have to go down the GNU/Linux route. Damn Small Linux and Linux from Scratch are also alternatives. Don't even think about running KDE or Gnome, you can still install and run all their apps but stick to a lightweight window manager like xfce or fluxbox for sake of performance. A website that may be of interest is http://www.linux-on-laptops.com to see what other users have experienced with yours or similar hardware.

I see, thanks, I'll look into those.. I looked at the site, and as luck would have it, I have a Compaq Presario 1250, and it goes from 1247 to 1277.

Have a look at both 1247 and 1277 as they may help, if you can add to it maybe submit something for the 1250.

mulinux - configure it in a windows directory so you can figure out all of your configuration without loosing the use of the computer. Than, when you get everything configured format the HD and start all over with mulinux. its actually so far been pretty good for me and my VERY old laptop. Only thing is a crusty old desktop and 256 max colors, but it would be FAST, and free! Google mulilnux and click on the first result.