Hardware requirements
 

Recently purchased a Mark Sobel book that includes FEDORA . The book implies that the OS will not run on my 'old' 486 processor. I always thought
that Linux could be made to run on this older hardware.
Can this be done?
Thanks in advance.

any i386/i486 iso will install and run. I thought fedora had i386 iso's though. The speed will be less than impressive, I would look into a lighter distro. Maybe Debian, Vector, or Slack though personally.

Other choices are

Feather Linux
http://featherlinux.berlios.de/

Puppy Linux
http://www.goosee.com/puppy/ (Main Site)
http://www.goosee.com/puppy/wikka/LinuxBeginners

Personally, I would consider using a smaller Window Manager
like
http://www.windowmaker.org/ (non-commercial; Window Maker)
Xfe, or others.

Sheng-Chieh