I got a Compaq TC1000 Tablet PC, I need to install a small distribution so that it loads rather quickly (the tablet is a little outdated, 256ram 1.2ghz) All I need on it is GiMP. Any ideas what I should use? I've been looking at DSL, think it'll be good enough? And if possible, any tips on helping make the tablet fully functional on linux (eg. Pen Driver, making sure the shortcut buttons do something, switch views)

I've never tried DSL, but I know Puppy Linux will run very nicely on lightweight hardware like that. GIMP is a lot like Photoshop, though. It's not a trivial application, and image files are notoriously large, so on a memory-starved machine like you describe a great deal of disk swapping goes on which slows things down quite a bit.

Unfortunately, I'm broke :( give me the name of another good free-ware art program, and I'll be all over it. :P

Might work for your box. http://www.slitaz.org/en/get/#cooking