I have asked this question in a similar way before....I have a Toshiba 7000CT Portege w/160MB RAM, Neomagic Graphics, floppy and 1 USB(won't boot from without a floppy), and a puny 4GB HD-which is the main problem!
So-I need a minimalistic distro like DSL-but DSL gets stuck every time I try to install it at the line right after it identifies the CPU,etc.
Also tried Puppy-but it had issues w/ copy and paste and issues with the USB drive(not letting me add/remove files from USB).
Have Crunchbanglite 8.04 installed now, but it's stressing the RAM out, usually hovering around 50-70MB RAM & 20-30MB Swap, before I open any applications!
I also had GoblinX Mini 2.07, it was cool and light, but the CPU fan still ran constantly just sitting idle.
I believe DSL is my best bet, but can't get it to boot up right!
It either freezes at bootup, gets stuck right after booting, or like most distros it starts x at 640x800 and I can't click on open window buttons!
Anybody know how I could edit the X settings in DSL? Also-I tried all the cheatcodes with DSL(noacpi, toram,etc), none worked-but It always says whenever Crunchbang was booting that "force is required to enable acpi acpi=force"
S0-thelaptop also has no CD-ROM, but I can usually trick it by installing a distro to USB with Unetbootin, booting with Plop bootmanager)floppy), Unetbootin then boots the USB, and then I switch out the USB drive for a USB CD-ROM drive with install CD in it while it's either loading or when it asks to mount CD-ROM.
It's been tricky getting anything on this machine!
I'm open to any suggestions at this point!HELP!

I had issues with DSL on an older laptop, but i got it installed by using the cheatcode

(something like this, you can find it on the dsl help from the boot menu)

dsl vga=777

but if DSL's not going to work for you, use DeLiLinux. I used that for years. It's based on Slackware, isn't big and it's main cause is to "Fight the Bloat"

Use the DebianNetInstall Disk to do a minimal install (no GUI yet). Use the testing (lenny) distro. Then after that is installed you can install either Fluxbox, XFCE, or my personal favorite lightweight desktop LXDE. Fluxbox and xfce are both in the repos. I think you have to add another source for lxde, but that is easy to do.

I quickly reread a few previous posts of yours linus72 regarding this same machine and I remembered that you do not always remain interactive with those assisting you. Quickly taking that time and commenting that you benefited or were hampered from help you received can not only be affirming for the helper but potentially valuable to yet other newcomers with a similar problem.

DistroWatch has various search parameters someone can implement in order to track down the Linux flavor that is right for them and to their specifications. By example some parameters are: old computers, ix86 architecture, LXDE desktop environment and so on.

No, I do not yet run Damn Small Linux so I can not suggest how to edit X settings. Also, I don't see where you specified what version of that distribution you are running so that others can help you. However, some strings to use for searches on these forums might be the following.

Most if not all of the above have DSL Wiki pages that can be found off of the Main Page. Some of these concepts, scripts and files may not pertain to you. For a list of dot files see the Configuration Files Page.

Thanks for all your help guys! I now have 3 Distro's installed on my PC--I have Slackware 12.2 on sda1, ArchLinux on sda2, and Ultimate Linux 1.9(Ubuntu 8.04).
I am still experimenting with the laptop and right now have GoblinX Mini installed via USB+CD-ROM(I'll explain tomorrow in the newbie section).
I am probably going to put GoblinX Micro or Archlinux on it now.

puppy linux is running my Toshiba. get 4.12 it has a good gui interface and will even have drivers for your modem/ pluss if you buy a trendnet pcmcia like i I did my old lap top is as fast as the new little mini note books Mine is running on 160 mb ram 400 mhz AMD and and I did a frugal install so the so part of the system runs in ram this make the syscalls very fast.
java 6_11 slows it a little and flash 10 runs pretty good. and to back up your whole system you just copy a file. it has it's own package manager pluss it will use slackware packages.
I down loaded Toshiba utilities so I use all the function key plus control the fan.