I am trying to get Linux running on an old laptop with 1.4 gig HD and 16 MB RAM (although I can upgrade to 40MB and might). Pentium I processor. This laptop has swapable floppy and cd drives and you have to reboot to swap them. Also, it cannot boot from the cd.

So, I have gotten as far as installing Tiny Linux, A and N series, via the floppy drive. But now I am lost. I would really like to have some kind of GUI, the ability to dialup (PPP), and a web browser. Is this possible? Can I install the rest of the packages from the cd drive?

How is this done?

Does this distribution have some kind of program installation utility like apt or yum? I have installed from source but it gets tiresome to be led down the endless path of dependencies.

I would like to run wvdial and some kind of little web browser like Dillo. Does anyone have some advice for me? Thanks!!!

Have you tried the small slackware version. zenwalk, or DSL?

I thought about trying DSL, but I just can't figure out how to install it when I can only boot from the floppy.

I have a working console-based system going, but is just the base and networking (A and N) packages.

I have figured out how to mount a zip drive. Maybe this could help?

Yeah, if you can mount a zip drive, then you could install Zip Slack at
http://www.slackware.com/zipslack/getzip.php

It only uses a standard 100MB zip disk, and it loads from the zip disk much like DSL would boot from a flash drive.

I haven't personally used zipslack yet, but I know the functionality of it. Then you can create some partitions, and mount a FS to your /etc/fstab file, and install Slack on your HDD. Probably won't be able to handle KDE or Gnome, but you could probably use the XFCE environment. It's lightweight and easy to use.

Just read the instructions on that URL, and you should be set.