This probably can't be fixed but I'll report it anyway since VL: developers are generally more clever than I am...
I have two Toshiba Libretto SS1010 itty bitty subnotebooks, 233MHz Pentium processor in one, 266MHz in the other, 64MB RAM in one, 96MB RAM in the other. 96MB is maxed out, BTW. Disk drive is only 2.1GB. Upgrading isn't easy as Toshiba used a 6.4mm high drive in the Slim Shock series of the Libretto. The only possibility is an IDE flash device -- not out of the question but not something I'm ready to do immediately. The issue with older Libretti is that they do not have a bootable CD-ROM drive, nor do they support booting from USB even if you have the docking bay with the USB 2.0 port, which I do.
The method that worked for both VL 5.1 and VL 5.8 was to create a small partition (55MB) with Damn Small Linux frugal install. Currently I have DSL 4.2.4 installed and running just fine. Then I would use a PCMCIA CD-ROM drive, copy vinstall-cd to my home directory, and with a couple of minor edits to adjust for the older software in DSL the hosted install worked like a charm. It doesn't work with VL 5.9 Light (any alpha version) or VL 5.9 Mini A1. Oh, it installs everything as it should, tells me install is done, and then issues a segmentation fault telling me my kernel (I assume the DSL kernel) is too old. DSL uses kernel 2.4.31. If I then reboot and choose my new VL install from an entry I created in the grub menu it startd to boot, I get the penguin on the screen, and then:
ohci-hcd 0000:00:0b:0: request interrupt 11 failed
ohci-hcd 0000:00:0b:0: init 0000:00:0b:0 fail -16
kernel panic - not syncing VFS: unable to mount root-fs on unknown block (0,0)
So much for hosted installs with DSL. I may try DSL-N 0.1rc4 or else DOS unless someone here has a brilliant suggestion.