I have an older Dell laptop that I want to use as a terminal. I have had success on my newer laptop running Ubuntu with GTK Terminal for connecting with a com port. I want to do this with the older laptop but it has just over 2 gig of space. I tried using Damn Small Linux but couldnt get the GTK terminal. Any Suggestionss?

I think you are referring to XFCE's Terminal as it is GTK based and simply called 'terminal' but though you could use this with something like minicom to connect over a serial port that's not all it is made for. I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to do or what program you used in ubuntu. Please give more details. you can use minicom or a similar program inside any terminal emulator (Eterm, aterm, Konsole, xterm or anything else) or just use the text console (without X) to emulate and old-school 'serial terminal' I think thats what you want right? I'm sure DamnSmall linux has everything you need to do this.

Hi thanks. I am planning to use it as a dumb terminal to interface with a Nortel PBX by way of the com port 9600 N 8 1

O.K. long ago (as I understand it I wasn't there) that is how things worked. there was a big mainframe and a dumb terminal to interface it with the human. because linux has it's roots in such things even today we use 'Terminal Emulators' (like xterm or Eterm) to enter commands to control the computer. now these 'terminals' are not usually directly capable of serial communication and are in need of a serial communication program like minicom to connect over the serial line. the terminal emulation is done by the terminal emulator this is why terminal is usually used to indicate that window you type commands in. so use the serial communications program of your choice with the terminal emulator of your choice. I used to use microcom in xterm on BasicLinux (a 3 floppy slackware based distro) and was able to emulate a 'dumb serial terminal' so DSL or anything should work just fine. I still have no idea what the hell you meant by 'GTK Terminal'

Just a wild guess but I think that they may just mean the gnome terminal. DSL does not have that terminal. Otherwise it would be called DHL (Damn Huge Linux)

If you are only going to use it as a serial terminal then there is no need for X. I would just use minicom. However if you really must have X and all its size the there are a few choices. You could just put XFCE and use the terminal supplied with that.

If you don't bother with X you could get an install down to about 5Mb. Maybe even less.