I could use a sugestion as to what linux version to start with on a compaq presario 1260 laptop 333mhz, 64 mb ram, 4 gb hard drive, cd rom drive.

Well you might want to start with Slax, a live slackware cd. Download it, and burn an iso onto a cd. Have your cdrom boot first, put the slax cd in and reboot. When you get to the login screen,
LiveCD login: root
Password: toor
root@LiveCD:~# guifast 800x600 60

By typing guifast, this will bring up fluxbox instaed of KDE, which might not work with only 64megs of ram. If you have not used fluxbox, when the "Slackware Live CD" show up on the screen, right click on the desktop screen and a dropdown menu shows up. From there you can open up the application that you want. The 800x600 60 is for your screen resolution which you can change to fit your screen.

You can try this cd out without installing to your hardrive. If this works on your computer, then I would use slackware to install on your hardrive.

http://slax.linux-live.org/
http://slax.linux-live.org/requirements.php
http://slax.linux-live.org/download.php

Read up on installing linux to the hardrive, and if you run Slax, you will be able to get all of the information that you need. Write this info down so when you do install linux, the info will be handy.
Good luck

You could try knoppix live to see how it goes for speed and such...

But my personal choice is mandrake, but they all have their good and bad points...

linux user since anout 1995...

Whichever distro you use, you will probably want a light weight window manager.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=39874

Kde or gnome will be really slow if you can even get them to work with 64 megs of ram.

One other comment, if you do use a live-cd whether it is knoppix, slax or any other one, the speed will be slower than a hardrive install.
http://www.distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=cd

A 333 meg cpu is enough for KDE, tho it may swap a bit with only 64 meg ram... Make sure you have 300 meg swap or more... Expect some sluggish behaviour at times. A lighter wm will be faster.

I have the same machine. I installed Vector Linux 4.3 and it runs great. Really quick.

Still no sound running but that's minor.

I posted a review for Vector 4.3 under the 'Vector Linux 4.0' review page. Check it out.