I am new to Free-DC but I am an old geek. Yes, I did learn to code on a Commodore PET. And I have always believed that computers could change the world. Which brings me to my current problems...

My side job is consulting with financial firms and I frequently run into masses of old computers stacked up in some closet. Nobody really wants to throw away functioning computers that have become obsolete. But, realistically, charities and such need at least semi modern systems so they have support and parts. I really don't want to tell them to trash these systems. They may be old, but somebody once loved them.

I have a couple of extra ports on the hub, bandwidth, power jacks and a stack of old computers. I want to give these old boxen a home until they finally die. I know most of the people here are concerned with massive power and the latest upgrade but I think a bunch of old boxen contentedly working through their twilight years can make a good contribution

Hardware specs: Usually 486 or Pentium systems. Generally 8 to 32 MB of RAM. SVGA, and 400MB to 1 GB HDs. 3.5 floppies with the occasional 5.25. Sorry, almost never a CD and only occasionally is the NIC present. NICs are cheap so I can provide those but CDs are pretty much out of the picture since these systems only rarely are able to support them.

I need to make these systems ready for crunching. So I figure Linux, a NIC and use the text client. The question is how? I havent used any flavor of Nix since SCO Xenix in 1994. Thus, some newbie issues in this area.

Every Linux that I have seen comes on a CD. Not feasible for this application. I need something that can at least boot from a floppy. One possible is to have a boot floppy then setup the NIC and finally install the OS over the LAN. Any good ideas here? Which distro etc.

Just to begin, first box is Ivy. She came from a good home, a secretary loved her for many years. She only did word processing and an aquarium screensaver. She is a Pentium100 with 8MB of RAM on a P55P4N mortherboard, a 853MB IDE HD, VGA and dual 3.5 floppy. Can you help me help her to become a productive happy boxen chewing on structures in her old age?