[Aiken]

You're too pessimistic, Hugh. Where are tons of images of dos bootable floppies in the net. Search for it.
And Deb is definetely Right System. You don't need BB to install Deb (this is a "feature" of source-based distros, like Sorcerer or Gentoo, while Deb is mostly binary distro). Order it on DVD. Cost: price of DVD disk + shipping.