I'm looking for a good distro to install on a Pentium-MMX 166 with 32 Mb ram and saw Vector linux was mentioned several times as a lightweight easy to install distro.

Will any Vector linux do or should I try one of the older releases?

I saw 1.8 has several releases and don't understand the difference:
vectorlinux-1.8
vectorlinux2-i386
vectorlinux2-pentium

Ok, so I found a Vector Linux 5.1 iso on a DVD that came with a mag and tried it. It appears to be fine: no problem with my video card, everything is detected... or so it seems: no matter what I try it won't recognise my mouse.

This is an old box so it has a serial mouse which works fine for setting up the bios so the hardware is OK. I've also tried another mouse just in case but no luck. I've made sure serial ports are scanned at boot, but it simply doesn't work. Any ideas?

If there's no PS/2 mouse port available, I'd suggest putting a USB card in the system, attaching a USB mouse, and trying again. The installer probably isn't even looking for a mouse on a serial port.

Thanks for answering. This is old hardware. I want to set up a linux that works or can be made to work. I will not spend any money on the boxes though. If the BIOS can find the mouse I see no reason why (if necessary with a little tweaking) linux can't.

True in principle, but you may have to hunt for a serial mouse driver (try Slackware's website). Or, by all means you could try one of the earlier releases of VL that you mentioned in your first post -- the worst than can happen is that it won't work. ;-)

Of course, there's no law saying that you *have* to use a mouse at all in Linux. Command-line-only setups work just fine, and are faster and more responsive on older hardware anyway.

True enough, I just wish I was handy enough to be able to everything from the cli. But anyway, this box is to be used by complete linux noobs to browse a local web so I need a working mouse.

this reply might be a bit late, but what the heck:

to get your serial mouse working, boot the computer into text user interface (lilo's linux-tui option).
then logon as root and type:

mcedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

locate the section that refers to the mouse.
where is says Option "Protocol" "something_here" make sure it reads Option "Protocol" "microsoft"

still in the mouse section, find the line saying Option "Device" "/dev/something_here" and change it so it reads: Option "Device" "/dev/ttyS0"

in the places i wrote "something_here" is just an example. just change whatever is there to what i indicated.

that should work, because i'm using a p_200 with a serial mouse as well.

ps: dont forget to save the changes, and then reboot

Not at all late!!

I've been very busy looking after my newborn daughter so I haven't had a chance to try and solve the problem. Will try as soon as I get a chance.
Thanks for the detailed information.

Yes, yes, yes! It worked!!
I'm extatic... now for the other 3 boxes and on to create a LAN.

Thank you very much!

Still another question:

after checking xorg.conf I find that it mentions 2 screen resolutions: 800x600 and 640x480. However when I try to change the screen resolution in XFCE or IceWM the only options available are 320x240 and 640x480. How do I get a 800x600 screen resolution?

easuter: just out of curiosity, which window manager do you use?