hello guys,

im just tried to install suse linux on my old notebook (486 DX2 66 MHz / 8 MB RAM). but after booting the main menue i need to load a driver for my my NIC. and then it gives me the message i should enter where the swap partitition is located but sadly i dont have one. so i am looking for a bootdisk which boots a tiny linux with FDISK on it to enable me to create some swap space. i also wouldnt mind to install debian if it would work better with it or redhat. HD size is only 400 MB so i think its best to install it from a FTP on web since the laptop also has no CD drive.

you can take your system into rescue mode and create a swap partition.

yes i know but there is no linux on the machine yet. just tried with the debian boot disks but it locks my machine up
think it wont work without swap space.

Suse may not be good for that, though I have heard of Debian running on a machine like that. Might want to look into Vector. If none of those bootdisks have the tools you need, try tomsrtbt

http://www.toms.net/rb/

It's got fdisk and more... much more. Or just install Basic and go from there. It's only a couple of disks (floppies).