installing linux on an old laptop

[cheesecake42]

A friend of mine at work gave me her old laptop and asked me to put linux on it. I've been having some trouble making this happen. She has a dell latitude cpi a series.
64mb ram
2.5mb neomagic video
pentium II 366 mhz

I've tried ubuntu edgy, suse 10, fedora core 6 and knoppix 3.3 the only ones i could even get to load up were suse 10 and knoppix, but suse is bogging her system down way too much and knoppix is just a live cd (it works really well though).

Any info would be much appreciated

[devils casper]

install some lightweight distro or use lightweight Desktop Manager. take look here.







Casper

[saikee]

Knoppix normally supplies with an installer called knoppix-installer.

One can invoke the root privilege in a terminal by

su
knoppix-installer

If it is a live CD Knoppix would waive the root password demand.

Depending on the Knoppix version you have the installation takes about 10 minutes.

Just installed v5.1.1. yesterday and it took 6 minutes but I mounted the iso image on a loop back device to avoid burning it into a CD.

Newer Knoppix version is a lot faster. I will check my Knoppix 3.3 as the installer name has changed at least once.
-----------------------------------------
Edited

I confirm the Knoppix installer for V3.3 is "knx-hdinstall". I am using it to do the reply.

The following has been checked and run OK for a new installation

su
knx-hdinstall

The oldest Knoppix in my box is V3.6 and its hard disk installer has already changed to "knoppix-installer"

The Knoppix 3.3 I have dated February 2004, about the time I started Linux. Its front cover states "King of the Live CD distros!"