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You could also try mulinux http://mulinux.sunsite.dk/ which can be installed from floppies if you don't have a cd-rom drive and the hardware requirements are really, really low. However as wanderingmind says, it depends on your laptop specs as far as which distro you can use.
It will have to install from floppy, so it should be a floppy-based distribution.
However, for any chance of really using it, you'll have to be able to update from the net. So it will have to rely if possible on known packages, such as .deb (Debian), .rpm (Fed/Mdv), or .tgz (Slack).
With this in mind, you can parse the numerous directories of floppy-based distro that you'll find with Google.
For your information, Damn Small Linux (CD unfortunately, based on Debian) takes about 300MB on my laptop, Firefox included. Debian takes about 800 but could be brought to 500MB or even less, without any loss of functionality.
In my opinion, you won't get anything better than Debian for a current distribution.
But an older distribution could do, provided all you need is inside: you won't find any update or programs on Internet for older distributions. Don't think you'll compile anything from source: you won't. With such a hardware, it is unbearable...
40MB of RAM is a strength: for such hardware, it is a lot (I have 32 in mine).
Contrary to what has been said, don't use Gnome 1 or KDE 1:
- I doubt you'll find either in current available distros.
- I doubt it will run nicely.
- It will take space on disk that could be better used.
I suggest you use IceWM instead: it is the lightest you'll get without switching to a geek-only window manager (and yes: it is lighter than fluxbox); Matchbox is also an option but its installation and configuration is a bit more involved.
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