I am very new to Linux but have wanted to try it for quite some time, i managed to get my hands on an old Toshiba satellite pro 430CDT that was fully wiped of all OS. I wanted to get a minimalist Linux and install it on the laptop, but i have ran into a few problems.
1) can't figure how to partition it for anything but DOS
2) Want BasicLinux or something with that kind of interface, but it says i need an ext2 on my drive, i don't know how to do this.
3) Laptop only has floppy drive, no cd, no usb, and no modem of any kind.

If anyone knows how to solve my many problems or can point me in the right direction it is much appreciated.

This is a minimalist install MuLinux. Checkout the screenshots: http://mulinux.dotsrc.org/

well that helped me find another distro, but it didn't really solve any of my problems, I am still deeply confused. thank you for the input and attempt though.

What's the confusion? Perhaps someone can shed some light on it for you.

Normally would recommend Gparted http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ for re-partitioning the drive, but with no CD, you might be better off with AEFDisk or something similar (floppy) http://www.aefdisk.com/

If you boot up on this, then wipe of the old partitions, set up a swap (use about 2X your RAM) and a linux partition (ext2 or ext3). Once you settle on a distro, you can probably find instructions for installing it without a CD drive in their documentation or forums.

thank you, you solved my problem fully. *BOWS* Thank you.
and {BBI}Nexus{BBI} thank you for the distro recommend, i think ill go with it.