What version of Linux?

[Richard French]

I have an old windows 98 machine I want to use as a mud server.
What version of Linux should i use on it?
I imagine I would need something older, because i heard that most newer 
versions of linux with screen readers need at least 256 megs of ram.
The only time I would need speech is when I install linux and when 
installing and compiling mud code.
I don't plan to do anything else with the machine.
Thank sin advance for any suggestions.