No, not a yellow book, but a question.

I have a box I wan't to run linux on as a gateway/firewall.

it's an old thin client, the same chasis as used for the original Equisys Netpilot, but I "acquired" it w/out a hdd, so no OS.

It's got a 133MHz Cyrix CPU, 64MB Ram, (now got) 20GB ide hdd, LAN (Realtek 8029), built in video (Cyrix), 2x DB9 serial, 1x DB25 parallel, 1x ISA expansion slot. The chassis is about the same size as the MoBo in my desktop PC, and includes the power supply - would make a cool little router!

I need a distro that can be pre-installed to HDD (no FDD, no bootable CD) with the required networking bits for dialup and (eventually) broadband.

Any suggestions?

I guess any modern distro will do. Installation will go smoothly whichever one you take. I personally like SuSE, but thats just what I know..

Do not even think about installing something like an x-server. The box won't make it. But starting from some kind of minimal install and adding packages you need, you will get any distro to work on that machine.

greets, Steave.

It'll make a nice firewall with smoothwall http://www.smoothwall.org/

Smothwall has got great reviews from alot of places, and should easily run on a 133MHz

And it should be apple to install on another computer where you can put the HD in, the console doesn't require a sepcific graphics driver. when you have set up smoothwall to the network you can control via a great webinterface from any computer on the network.