I need any pointers I can get...
I want to install Linux on a P75 system with 16mb ram, to use as a web server for one small web page...
I know the newer versions of redhat, etc. wont run on something this slow, can anyone point me in the right direction?

sure, http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=20451

Hmmmm. Although I am really into legacy hardware I have never used anything so slow before I would say you might be able to use any distro version but you would need to strip it out. I have a P233 running RH8. Now if I wanted a fancy GUI and all it would be very slow, however if I don't load X or any GUI programs for that matter - it flies! I use it for a number of tasks none of which are in a desktop environment. I use it all from the command line. However your title is "first time" so I suspect this could be a difficult arrangement. I would, if I were you, go to www.distrowatch.com and look thru all the major distros, find version numbers that include apache that were released around the same time as the computer was mnfgr'd and find an iso mirror to dl it from. Make your disks and try to load it...see what happens. I am assuming this is a hobbiest project so it will not kill you if it takes you a while to get it running.

thanks for both of your help...

Are you expecting to have a gui, or do you just want to run apache??

it would be nice to have a gui, but not entriely necessary...this is mostly a learning experience, and the predominant thing i want to learn is how to set up apache

I currently have a p100 w/ 80 meg of memory that runs gui and all the other niceties as well as apache, ssh and ftp. When I run it without the gui I am using about 30meg of memory. Your milage may vary.

With less available memory, maybe try RH6 or previous, or look into linuxiso.org to get some more info..

Let me know what you go with, I will be setting up a similar system soon.

LibranetEssential2.0, it is supposed to run on a 386dx with only 16Mb RAM, just as a suggestion. Also installs easily, but I don't know about running apache.

Debian.
Download the Rescue, Root and modules floppies.
Do a net install of the basic system. (err, are you on dialup or high-speed?)
Apt-get install apache, and anything else you may want (sshd, webmin?)
I just got my Pentium 100 with 64MB RAM going with Apache, PHP, MySQL.
I would guess 16 MB would be a little slow but would work OK.
Good Luck.