Choices, choices ... what shall I start with?
 

I have a VERY old laptop (386, 8M RAM, 240MB HD) that I don't use (I have found it has Windows 3.11 on it - and I complain about Windows 98!!). Any suggestions for a good distribution for this old machine? It doesn't have a CD, but I do have a spare CD Writer that could connect to the parallel port (and would anyone know how to find drivers for it).

I have never used Linux before (but many years ago I did manage an SCO system in a small company).

Very few modern distros will run on something that old. You could try slackware, perhaps an old version, that might fit.

Remember that the smaller you go, the harder it will be to setup.

Try an earlier version of Slackware or Debian, you won't be able to use the GUI no matter what distro you choose, though.

Thankx. Much as I suspected.

Headed for Slackware, but can't get over the first hurdle: how can you load the boot disk image onto a floppy when the file (1.4MB) is larger than the space on the floppy (1.38MB)?

Space on the floppy should be 1.44MB, get a higher density floppy i guess...
-NSKL

You don't just copy the file onto (a dos FAT partition on) the floppy, you have to make a bootable disk with rawrite which can be found wherever you got your boot image along with instructions how to do that.