Lightweight distro lk 2.6 for driver development 99

Jules

I finally managed to get an AMD Athlon 700 MHz, 128 MB, 4GB. I am not sure if it is 64 bit system. Currently it has Win NT installed and the System Properties shows the computer as "x86 Family 6 Model 2 Stepping 2, AT-AT Compatible". Even if it is 64 bit system, I can still install 32 bit version of kernel. Is that right? I do not want to install a 64 bit version of the kernel.

I visited the Slackware website. It says, "Slackware 10.2 includes the Linux 2.4.31 kernel, with Linux 2.6.13 available in thetesting directory." So it seems to me that in order to use lk 2.6 for Slackware, I need to build it from its sources. If that is true, I probably want to avoid that (because I have very limited experience in installing Linux and also I want to get started quickly). But if it's not that complicated, I can try it out if I have a brief overview of what it's about.

Will Ubuntu be a good choice if I am looking for a lightweight distro in which the kernel isn't (too much) different from the mainline 2.6 kernel? I saw that all the versions of Ubuntu uses lk 2.6. Or any other recommendations?

Thanks.