I am buying a refurbished IBM thinkpad with no OS.

I am pretty close to a complete Linux newbie.

I would like to install the closest equivalent to Windows 98. (No new features but a gui built with a mid to late 90's computer in mind.)

IBM ThinkPad 760XD
Processor: Intel Pentium MMX 166MHz
Memory : 48Mb
Hard Drive Capacity: 2.9Gb
Included Drives: 1.44Mb Floppy Drive
Included CDROM
Included 56K Modem
Display: 12.1" TFT

I would like to install Linux from the cd-rom if possible. If neither KDE, GNOME or some GUI is possible then regrettably, I will have to go with windows.

A year ago I ran Mandrake 9 point something on a system with substandard hardware (I think the motherboard cache was broken or something) and Mandrake vastly outperformed 98, but I think that system had more memory than this laptop.

I guess the optimal situation would be that I can install Mandrake 10 so it can identify all of my hardware and make some selections that require less memory than a standard install.

I had a IBM thinkpad 560, similar spec but with 80mb of ram. I had zipslack installed and a fat32 along with win98. Didn't have any problems installing it apart from trying to get X working. I'm sure you can install zipslack onto a linux partition or slackware.

Give Slackware a shot, but don't install anything you don't need. Slack is very good at fitting itself into small spaces. -- J.W.