I'm looking for a really stipped down flavor of linux that could run on almost any machine (Pentium and up). I don't want a rich GUI or anything, just basic functionality with lowest possible hardware requirements.

Any suggestions?

Slackware with Fluxbox desktop environment should do the trick I think.
upd: here's a nice list of Linux distros
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/

get mandrake if your new to linux, its really easy to use

wait wait wait WAIT!!
Mandrake???!!
quoting Nebula

a really stipped down flavor of linux that could run on almost any machine
Mandrake is very nice and shiny , but it is bloated.
I like it, I use it as my desktop, but then I have a good computer too.
Mandrake can't be run on any machine.

it can run on my firewall(amd k6 550mhz, 320mb ram)it ran when it only had 64mb aswell, i recently upgraded it to get a faster cache though

It's a lot saner to choose Slackware in this case though

I'd go with Gentoo as it's my favorite distro at the moment, It might take a while to set up on a slow box but once you're done it's well worth it. When it's up and running you've pretty much only got the bare neccessities on there so you won't have to worry about having to remove random useless packages that you'll never use anyway.

As for a windowmanager, I'd choose WindowMaker. It's free of bloat and is just about as bare-bones as you can get. I use it on my laptop as well as my desktop even though both could easily handle memory hogs like KDE or GNOME. I just set the graphical apps I use the most as keyboard shortcuts and everything runs smoothly.

So WindowMaker/Gentoo, is my advice.

Fluxbox env. requires about 980KB of RAM
besides settiing up Gentoo on slow machines.... the pain will be legendary
and if you screw up and have to reinstall.... /shrugs

Slackware, definately. Simple to install and fast. I also have to second fluxbox. You could even try the more basic blackbox, or *shudders* openbox. PekWM is also nice

windowmaker is..kind of unpleasant.

PS, have you tried slackware yet, Avatar? ;)

I've already looked into gentoo and a few other popular flavors, but they have too heavy of hardware requirements.


Fluxbox env. requires about 980KB of RAM

now THAT'S what i'm looking for...

avatar/xeres, thanks for the suggestions, i'll check em out

by chance mind says your comps stats?

Knoppix http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=44

:D