I'm trying to install slacko puppy on an old compaq evo n200. It has about 60gb hard drive and 198 ram. It already has windows xp, windows xp backup and xp lite on 3 partitions. My cd drive is noisy and slow so running it off cd is not really practical and there is no boot option for usb.

How might I install linux puppy to hard drive? I'd like to keep one windows option.

According to the Puppy Linux site below, the current Slacko release requires a minimum of 256MB of RAM. More RAM or try another Linux such as AntiX or Slitaz or others you find searching for Linux systems on minimal RAM.

http://puppylinux.org/main/Download%...%20Release.htm

A thread that might interest you no matter what you decide.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=95655

If going with Puppy on that old piece of gear. You might be better served with a 412 version.
Here is a thread on that.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=68349

Good luck on whatever you decide to do.

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/InstallationFullHDD

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/InstallationIndex

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29653

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/FrugalOrFullInstallation

As Yancek says, Puppy is not really intended for very small computers. Even if you put it on a HD, the usual method is what they call a frugal install, where it still loads into RAM to run. You can do a conventional install, but the result is not secure, which why they don't recommend it.

There are several distros which will be happy with 198MB, but AntiX is the smallest. Last time I tried it, it idled in less than 60MB and ran a web browser in 120.
http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
Get the full version of AntiX 13.

Your live CD of AntiX will come with a program called GParted, which you use to set up your hard disk before running the installer. This is the best tutorial:
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html

You should end up with four partitions:
sda1: where XP is (defrag in Windows, then shrink it a bit with GParted)
sda2: where Linux goes (3 GB)
sda3: for swap, used when you run short on memory (about 1/4 GB)
sda4: for /home, where your own files go (as much as is left)

Many thanks for all the replies, I'll try AnitX and see how I get on! It's a steep learning curve!