Whats a good flavor of linux for a old laptop with a 5 gig hdd and 32 megs of ram

I would look for something like Puppy Linux. With so little RAM most of the newer Linux distros like Ubuntu or Linux Mint will struggle to run.

Try looking on Distrowatch.com, it lists all the Linux variants with links to their sites. I put a link below. If it doesn't hyperlink automatically you will have to copy and paste it into your browser.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pupp

Arch Linux or Damn Small Linux

Think they`re the best for that hardware

I installed Debian on a machine with 128 megs Pentium 3 600Mhz works like a charm for a simple server couldn't believe it but GNome even works on it. Not sure how it will favour with 32 megs though might be worth trying Debian i tried a few others but couldn't get anywhere. Stay away from Fedora thats the only one i can remember i tried but i know i tried others. I've only got a 4.7gig drive which left me with 2 gig free. Good luck with it let us know how it went.

I hear good things about Debian especially for an old laptop, sounds like a very old laptop with 32 megs of ram a pentium 1 or something hope its got internet access otherwise most linux installation will be tricky, I mostly use ubuntu or fedora.