I am considering buying a low spec pc to act as a router for my LAN at home. The problem is that while I have found a pc that is well within my budget, it has no CD-ROM drive. Is it possible to install Mandrake via a network?

I have not yet decided whether put 9.0 or 8.2 on, since this will be an important server.

The machine does have a floppy drive

I have looked a little on the internet for answers to this question and a few pages seem to suggest that it is possible, but you download all the files as they are required. I have CDs for 8.2 & 9.0 - can I install from them over a network?

If not, any tips on a network install would be helpful

Also what is the minimum memory requirement to run X? I read that 32Mb is only good for a text install - which is fine, but could I run X with something like blackbox after install if I only had 32Mb

Short answer: You can.
Long answer: :-)

1) On CD1, you'll find floppy images in a subdirectory. One of those images is an image to make the floppy boot the CDROM (if the system is unable to directly boot the Cd), and another image (probably named network.img or something like that) is to make the floppy boot CD1 from the network. I know this floppy image exist, but I never used it.
Of course, you'll have to have a working network, with access to a machine with a shared CD drive (I don't know if it should be shared via ftp, nfs, or other) or partition with the CD's content. There should also be another floppy image to make the boot process look for packages on the local hard disk.

2) I use Mandrake 8.1. Mandrake 9.0 is said to be faster than 8.x. I installed 8.1 with X on a PentiumMMX-150 laptop with 32MB ram and 2GB hard drive. There's no problem. X is a little slow, but fast enough; very usable.
I boot in runlevel 3, and startx only when needed. For long periods of time, I start X with a window manager: I have found IceWM to be the best window manager in performances and usability. For short periods of time with only one application, I directly start X with only this application, eg: startx /usr/bin/netscape

All in all, I'm very satisfied with what I can do with this old laptop, which is also acting as a server (mail and FTP).

Yves.

Thanks Yin Yeti, that's very helpful.

Does anyone know how I am supposed to share my CD drive over the network?