arggg...

Well; as I mentioned earlier
it has Debian Lenny & Absolute 13/current on it now
both battling for a 4GB hdd!
LOL

I think I am going to stay with 2.6 kernel as going back to 11.0 seems kinda absurd...

Are there any comparo's between like slackware/arch/gentoo for this lappy?

Performance is the main concern
no firefox, maybe midori, or something like Dillo from slackbuilds

the thing I really need is a way to customize the 10"" screen space
I have edited alot of stuff in ~/.config like how big leafpad is when it opens,etc

Once I do get it right and whatever distro
I plan to share it as a livecd
that way others could install it if they want

Try Puppy 4.3.10 it will probe the hardware and will tell you what res will work then it will say some thing like this:
1024 x 768 OK For Card Ok For Monitor

Give it a shot