installation not consistant
 

Ok, I tried for the 5th time to install slackware and no go. first time, I just realised it would take bloody ages because it kept asking for every single package, second time it did not want to boot off the second floppy, would just say something about crt error and blab on some weird codes like windows tends to do on BSODs, 3rd time it worked, but after 11 hours it decided to start crapping out and say that packages are corrupted, forth time it did not want to boot off the second floppy again, 5th time same thing. Now I quit.

Why is it not consistant? Why is it that sometimes it boots, and some other times it does not? All I want is the linux OS installed on that 486, I don't care what distro as long as it works with ISA network cards - I just want linux on it so I can download apache and stuff and play around with servers. But the installers are so bloody hard for nothing and want to install all this bloatware with it. I don't need 20 different mp3 players on a computer that does not have a sound card!

Is there an easier way to do this?

Which version of Slack are you trying? All the ones I remember had two steps of package choose. First you have groups (and then you can remove X and so on). Then there was the second one, when you choose packages only from the groups you selected earlier.

The thing with floppies are connected to the floppies themself - floppies get error quickly. What installation method you do? Floppy with hd, network?

I'm using the floppies to boot since that 486 (or any other) can't boot on CDs. I noticed that if I ingore the errors it works though, but that's probably something that will haunt me later right?

If you get an error about not very important package, it's not a big problem - after you finish and connect to the Net, you can download the package and upgrade it. An error on important package (for example kernel) will lead to trouble, for sure.