Recommend a very light Linux distribution for very old computer 448

I'm not sure how much help this will be, but I'm running Debian "etch" with KDE 3.5 on a Compaq Armada 1700 (233 MHz, 164 meg RAM, 4 gig HD). A lot of people would say that isn't possible, or not very pleasant, but the proof that neither is true is staring me in the face, every day. (It goes without saying that I don't do heavy-duty gaming, or try to play huge multi-media files.)

My impression is that many people asking "which distro for a light Linux" may not be grasping that it isn't the disto that matters in terms of performance so much as what you do with your system once a distro has done its installation magic.

The real issues for satisfactory performance on resource-challenged systems are:

o reducing the size of the kernel o paring down the number of modules loaded into memory o removing uneeded daemons o choosing your apps carefully, with an eye to memory footprint o if running KDE, stripping off some eye-candy o using a renicing daemon like "and" So the question is not so much "which distro for a light installation?" as "which distro(s) gives me the flexibility to tailor the OS to my available resources?" I've used Debian for a decade because it does just that. I'm not suggesting it's the best, or anything like that. Merely that it has allowed me to tweak my systems easily to fit their limited resources.

That said, I have to concur with another poster in this thread who suggests that bumping up memory is a good idea. It really is astounding how much more seamlessly GNU-Linux apps run when you throw more memory at your system.

-- Peter Schaffter Author of The Schumann Proof (RendezVous Press, Canada)