I tried lubuntu 10.x and I think it worked OK on 256.

My choice would be Puppy, but I recommend trying several of the above-mentioned distros until you find one you like. Just be sure to set up a swap partition.

I installed Puppy 525 and it worked better that Ubuntu 11.04. I still have Ubuntu on the Desktop. Thanks.
Ken

Pretty sure I did a lubuntu install with 256MB and had no problems, but I cant remember if I used a lubuntu disc or if I started with a minimal install of ubuntu then added lubuntu-desktop.

As long as its not ancient EDO/Fast page RAM, its not that hard to find more RAM. A lot of places still sell PC100/133 new.

I would have guessed that awesomeWM would have used less RAM than that. If you like it, sure, use it, but it hardly seems worth it compared to debian squeeze Xfce, which uses 69-70MB of RAM.

Not surprising that puppy worked better than ubuntu 11.04, it shouldnt even install on less than 384MB-

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NattyNarwhal/ReleaseNotes

On all of my PC's and a lappy ArchBang runs at lowest ram vs all others I have (many)
http://archbang.org/

I have it installed on my Toshiba Portege 7000CT pentiumII 266mhz, 160mb RAM and it runs at like 32mb RAM with Openbox and customized kernel.

I have a Toshiba old laptop with Pentium 4, 40GB HDD and 256Mb RAM originally + 256Mb added later = 512Mb.
I must add right away that it is a terribly slow machine, don't know what makes it so but it was irritatingly slow even when it was manufactured and posed as kinda "advanced" on the market (and shipped with WinXP).
So I tried Antix, Vector Linux, Solaris, Freebsd and some other things on it.
Right now it works OK with Ubuntu 10.10 with GNOME desktop. Let me explain why.

I had one and the same problem with the minimalist distros I've tried: really bad handling of SAMBA related tasks. While they have tools to access SMB printers and shares, somehow it never works 100% and I'd always be in for a surprise: the next time I need to access my SMB-shared printer it is "not available", although the day before I fixed it.

So eventually I had to "fall back" to Ubuntu Desktop, where SMB access works fine "out of the box". I mean, while SAMBA package for Linux is in a very good state presently, in AntiX it takes a good deal of effort to make it work OK and even then it may not work tomorrow, while in Ubuntu it works like charm once and for all times. Trying to install same set of packages in AntiX didn't help either .
I mean SMB WORKGROUP browsing/scanning, which works fine in Ubuntu and makes it no problem to add a share or a printer, and which I could never solve successfully in AntiX. I don't see how this particular problem can be related to hardware limitations.
...So, even though I loved AntiX very much as a very nice, fast and neat distro providing in a (reasonably) limited way everything one may need, I stumbled upon its inability to handle SAMBA properly. Is it the same way in other small distros?

AM I EXPECTING TOO MUCH?

Not at all. Let's not forget, not so very long time ago 256Mb of RAM used to be a NORMAL hardware configuration, and everything worked just fine back then.
I remember running a full-featured RedHat based KDE Desktop on a Pentium Celeron 1.9GHz x 256Mb RAM machine (kernel 2.4.18) to my utter satisfaction, never feeling 256Mb to be "not enough". To tell you the truth, that was a nice upgrade I made from Pentium MMX x 82MB of RAM, where the same distro aslo ran "reasonably fine", though a bit slower .
So the point is, I don't see why these things should not work even better today, when kernel itself and all related software packages have improved significantly.
And what functionality am I talking about? Why, nothing really special but these basics: browse the web, create OpenOffice documents, print them, access SMB shares, send emails, some limited photo editing. Something we had no problem doing back then at the time of kernel 2.4.18 and 256Mb RAM machines. So I don't see why those "small distros" should be short of such essentials today, when the corresponding packages have improved significantly.
Otherwise I'll be compelled to think that Linux distros are following the same trend as MS Windows is: to provide some allegedly "advanced" resource-greedy features (like Desktop search engines and desktop effects) to make use of the modern CPUs and monstrous amounts of RAM modern motherboards are so proud to deliver. Apart from being a technological breakthrough (another amazing victory of human intelligence) I deem these to be mere waste of human effort, time and money.

Regards,
Kostya

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