[mdlug] Completely replacing Windows 98se with Linux!

[rstaff]

New project.  Goal to completely replace Windows 98 second edition with 
Linux!

Target PC is a very old CBW Diplomat PC.
CBW = Computer Builders Warehouse.  The PC was purchased at their West 
Bloomfield store on Orchard Lake Road.  I don't think the store exists 
anymore.

This PC also has two drives.  Drive #1 has 14 Gb, while drive #2 has 28 
Gb.  It has about 524 Mb of memory RAM.  The CPU is an Intel Pentium III 
598 MHz.  Drive #1 currently houses Win 98se, while drive #2 has Simply 
MEPIS Linux (version 6 I think).

I tried seven supposedly light weight Linux Live CD/DVD distros.  Six of 
those Live CD/DVD distros experienced a kernel panic during the boot 
process.  One Live CD booted into a usable desktop.

The six that failed were as follows:
      four Ubuntu based ==> Xubuntu 14.04, Lubuntu 14.04, LXLE 12.04, 
Puppy Linux.
      one Debian based ===> Point Linux 2.3 Mate
      one Slackware based => Porteus 3.0 LXDE

The one that booted into a usable desktop was SliTaz 4.0.  An apparently 
custom build.
SliTaz 4 is a mini distribution and live CD designed to run speedily on 
hardware with 256 MB of RAM.  The SliTaz ISO image fits on a less than 
30 MB media and takes just 80 MB of hard disk space.  (Source DistroWatch)

On this very old PC, in SliTaz Linux, I was able to play Midi and mp3 
music files.
In Xterm, it took CLI commands as expected.
SliTaz recognized a 4 port USB hub, along with my USB stick of music and 
USB WiFi stick.  I was able to connect to a neighbor's WiFi network as a 
guest, sorry Norm.  ;-)  However, the connection was very slow; 
EarthLink's home page eventually loaded; I gave up on waiting for 
Google's home page.

So...  Can anybody suggest some other light weight distros to experiment 
with?
Thanks,
Rick Staff
P.S.  In my web searches, I came across "Non-pae kernel option".  What 
is that?