Okay, long ago I installed Slackware 8 (or was it 9?) on my old IBM 385XD.  Since it only topped at 96Mb of memory, small mattered.
 
I don't advise Slackware cos it does little, if any, detection work.  Mandrake's way better for that.
 
When I last looked, wireless tended to be very poorly handled; has this been any improved in the last two years?