Suggestions for a nice light distro for an old laptop
 

Panasonic Toughbook CF-27 Pentium II 300 mhz 6 GB HDD 192 MB RAM 3.5" FDD a USB1 Port 56K Modem and a Touch Screen.

No CD-ROM Drive or network connector so I'll have to install from my external USB drive.

I like Fluxbox, and am not afraid of doing some manual configuration, but I would like something that can handle the touch screen if it's possible on something that old.

Hello, tough laptop lover!
 

I've got a Gobook, which is similar but with an integrated NIC. You could install a Debian Stable, eventually adding a NIC card to do a net-install. Personnaly I've added a SCSI card and it has been seen by Debian without problems. I didn't tried the touchscreen yet, because I mainly work in console mode, but it seems that it's very simple, we just have to add a line in xorg.conf. The big problem I'm facing is, as always, ACPI management :-(

It may lack the ability to boot from a USB hard drive, but you might get lucky. Personally, I'd scrounge up a USB network adapter and try a Debian floppy net-install.