I was wondering what Fedora would run great on an IBM POS machine
with
a Cyrix 166 and 32mb of memory. I am looking on running a Java
Application.
It is a point of sale machine.
Someone suggested DSL. Have you considered netBSD?
Either way, you'll be setting X11 up yourself, choosing your own
window manager, etc.
And maybe even compiling Java, not to mention loading it yourself.
Lot's of time-consuming work, lots of searching the web for answers,
lots of riding the appropriate newsgroups and mailing lists.
If the RAM is socketed, you might consider trying to upgrade it. At
least 128M would give you a lot more headroom, which you will want if
you run Java.
Might one ask whether you have a specific reason for wanting to use
that particular box for the project you have in mind?