what version of linux should I install on a 486 intel with 250MB hard disk ? and where can I get distros ?

thanks in advance

The harddisk is not the point (tomsrtbt works from 1 floppy), but the RAM !
Most modern distros need 64 MB for the install-ramdisk.

what if I remove hard disk from 486 and install it on my p3 and do the intallation, will the hard drive work on my 486 ?

*bump*

Have a look at www.amigolinux.org/

I'm sorry, you need a FAT partition to install it with first...

Maybe http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

imo mulinux is the best choice for a 486, its very small, can live either on floppys, hard disk, cdrom, (and i believe zipdrives). It has X, GCC, Wine, Perl, Tcl/Tk, Dosemu and more. I think installing everything will take <20Mb, though its a while since i used it last. You can install it onto an msdos filesystem, or an ext2 one. It was my very first taste of linux (about 5 years ago) and is probarbly the main reason i build lfs (so i can get nice small fast and stable system instead of a big fat ugly one). It is a little different from most mini distros in that it gives up a little space to give you more toys to play with, and you get quite a lot considering. It can do most stuff the major distros can do, and even includes its own pygmy web server!

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