There are 7 CDs?
I heard that Debian might be the best route for an IBM iSeries 366Celeron 4GBhd 32MB ram laptop.

Do I need all 7 or can I get by with just 1 & 2 for a KDE system?

If the computer is network connected, you can just install a base system and download applications from the internet. Also, the Sarge installer is much better see: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ or click here to download the netinst iso image: http://cdimage.debian.org/pub/cdimag...86-netinst.iso That image is about 100 MB. If you boot the CD created by that image, it will guide you through installing.

You will likely not be able to run KDE on your system. You need about 256 MB of memory to get decent performance with KDE, 128 MB is a minimum I think. You should install fluxbox, icewm, or some other light window manager instead.

If you use kde or gnome your system will be running in slow motion with your huge amount of ram and your slow processor.

If you have a good internet connection, download the first cd to do a basic installation and use debian tools to add the rest of the software you need.

With this old of a laptop, I am using a PCMCIA NIC card. Will a basic install support this?

The Debian sarge installer has better hardware support. I have installed it on a laptop with a PCMCIA NIC card and it worked fine.

I'll give it a shot. Thanks!
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