I must say the live distros are amusing in almost any form and the "mini distros" are nothing short of amazing and fun.

Damn Small Linux: Because I am not a long-time user of Linux, I didn't understand of lot of the programs and I found the desktop confusing to configure. The distro loaded very nicely on my P2-233 (but only 65 meg ram - a real stumbling block). However, I loved the little dashboard monitor. It didn't configure my network without quite of bit of work. For fun, I tried it on my P3-1.4 desktop with 1 gig of RAM - wonderful - this program flies. Because I don't feel like starting at the bottom of the learning curve, I doubt this will be something I will use in the future on my older machines. But the speed on the newer machine will still prompt me to burn this to disk and keep it. If you ever wanted to get up and running fast, check some email, the internet and take some notes - this is a great program.

Slax: Although I could get this to eventually load on my p2, it took almost 8 minutes to boot. Once booted, I couldn't get the mouse, network or much else to work.

Vector Linux: Again, I think the lack of RAM choked this distro. Worked great on my desktop.

Puppy Linux "chubby SOHO" edition. Very similar to DSL but with OpenOffice and Mozilla that bulked it up from around 68 meg to 93 meg. For my needs, this is a keeper. Had trouble recognizing my network, but works nicely on my p2. I may go for a full install this this one. It was both small and functional, right off the CD. Like DSL, this program was excellent on my desktop.

I doubt any of these will ever be a "replacement" for windoze like Ubuntu, Mepis, and Knoppix, but the application of these programs for things like (1) old hardware, (2) restarting sick machines, (3) use on someone else's computer, (4) or my favorite - just working fast - are fantastic.

Thanks to all who posted - particularly the link for all the distros.