[ILUG] Lightweight install

[Dave Wilson]

Guys,

I want to set up an obsolete 486 (12Mb RAM, a few hundred meg hard disk)
as a dialup server/ipmasq/proxy/mail server (in order of importance).
I'll be plugging in an external modem and dialing up arbitrary Irish ISPs
(read: Eircom, Esat Clear). Any recommendations on which route to take:

  * Go with a recent, heavy distro (e.g. RH6.1) and install as little
    as possible except vitals and networking.

  * Go with an old install of Red Hat, Debian, Slackware, whatever.

  * Go for one of the really light distros.

I'm concerned that the heavy dists will be too heavy, but the
linux-on-a-floppy-or-three ones won't have the right dialup tools,
or the oomph I'll need when I eventually get round to installing
squid and sendmail.

Anyone tried this yet?

Dave