I have tried Knoppix 5.1 CD and Damn Small Linux 4.4.1, but I never get to the system boot prompt.
System is an old Dell Dimension with a Pentium 100 processor; I have set it to boot from CD. It boots windows, and can read the CDs from Windows. Only 64M of RAM.

It has a network card (intel?) and I have a DHCP server running; it shows no sign of getting requests when I boot. Video is a Number 9 card.

My interest is in using the machine as an X terminal.

I saw the FAQ saying that some Dell systems had problems booting after running Knoppix. Although that is not my problem, I tried the suggested fix of unplugging for a few seconds. It didn't help.

Any ideas?