I want to make an installation on a thinkpad 701C: 486/16Mb/500Mb. Except the kernel, I need support for program development in as many languages as possible but at least C/C++ and Lisp. My only choice is to install by floppy disks only.
Which distribution should I choose, and are there any other issues I should keep in mind given the circumstances mentioned above?
FreeBSD can be installed by floppy - but it will be the absolute minimum UNIX install and will take quite a while. I believe this includes gcc! Don't know about Lisp.
you can also use an installation disk that is provided with most distrobutions, and then you can select ftp download for everything else, that is if you have your network card or modem set up. is it that you have no cd rom? if that is so then you are not out of luck, id recommed suse if you want linux, and if you want a bsd id suggest netbsd, because your on a laptop netbsd is pretty good at working with alot of hardware.