DSL now is coming out with a less minimalist alpha, bundled with Gumeric and 
Abiword, 80+Mb.  Might be worth a try?   I found apt-get problematic on quite 
a few applications in the original DSL.   I found even Vector too slow on a 
K6.  Roll your own minimalist Debian is quite good.  I used it with 
Windowmaker and found it perfectly adequate.  This was on a 200MMX.
Alas, trying this makes you wonder why, on this old hardware, you really want 
to replace W98.  Security maybe.  But the combination of Office 98 and W98 on 
a really old machine, its hard, maybe impossible, to get the same combination 
of performance and features...
Peter