You might want to head over to distrowatch and have alook at the many linux distributions out there, some live cd.

There used to be some good live distros for what you're trying to do, although the net install of debian would be ideal in that it gives you the option of installing x windows or not. I've done it on suns and macs, never easy but once installed you can apt-get what you want

The distros that used to be cool for old machines are flonix (now seems to be commercial) and morphix. Damnsmall linux is another.


http://distrowatch.com/