Hello,

I've got a great little Thinkpad X22 laptop that I hate to put to rest. It isn't really any good for the latest and greatest Linux distro since it's something like 10 to 12 years old. What I've been wanting to do for quite a while, now, is build a text-base laptop that I can run VI, Emacs, Mutt, etc. I'm looking for some recommendations for distributions that will allow me to do an install without a GUI desktop. Also, a distro that, in this form, will still have good support for wireless. I figure that if I can get my wireless card(s) working, I can pretty much do anything with it. I've been running Slackware, Ubuntu, and Fedora 12 on my Thinkpad T41. Do either of those distributions allow an install without a GUI desktop?

Thanks for the help!

Slackware certainly will. Do a custom install and don't install the X package.

Well, you don't have to run X, even if it is installed. If you install slackware then just don't type "startx" ever.

Thanks for the replies.

I was thinking Slackware would probably do what I needed.

devnull10: Good point!

Can't lose with Slackware. Check out Arch as well.

You could also do a Debian netinstall:

http://www.uk.debian.org/CD/netinst/

Install the basic system,then you have control of what you install on your machine.
If you don't want X,then don't install it.Simple as that.

Thanks for the info. I did a basic install of Debian on the aging laptop. It's running great.