Only issues specific to the use of a zip drive as source media will be covered here. There is nothing left that can be upgraded on this unit. Linux has been at the cutting edge from the start but also breathes new life into some older 386 and 486 hardware. Slackware can be placed on a 4 meg machine with some work and a prayer. The following system greatly reduces the work.
Prayer always helps, even with the best of systems.
I've used the following system with 3 other laptops, and one 386 desktop machine. HD no math coprocessor. While this system works well I'd like to be able to do similar tricks with Debian, RedHat, Caldera Lite, and some of the other popular distributions offering more choice to Linux users I help this way. Installing from cdrom or Ethernet are the methods of choice when available. In cases where floppy disk install appears to be the only choice a parallel port zip drive offers numerous advantages.