i can run them in virtual machine, i can run winpe (windows sorta live cd). i think it's something about the linux kernel needing updating for fairly new core 2 duo processor and even newer intel chipset. i like to try a few of the distros and to me the good ones just work. like slax used to make me laugh at how fast it booted and how well it worked and looked in about 5 minutes. cd's are iso's from the dustro websites. format? and i think we're a little newer than i386. it's no big thing

I have had problems with some distros and just abandoned them in search for something newer. My old standby is Knoppix and carry a copy around with me everywhere. Ubuntu 8.04 was just released and will work with the newer chipsets but it's.......not what I would recommend if you are used to slackware. A very cool security centric distro based on slackware that everyone should try is 'backtrack'. It's a lot more command line based and I use it for breaking our test network.