Regarding the question about a minimalstic Desktop installation, I would
look into installing a basic system without Gnome or KDE.  As far as a
M$ Word filterable editor, look into StarOffice (which is large and
clunky) or the newer abiword (which compiles with either gtk or gnome, I
think).  I believe gnumeric requires gnome components and libraries to
run, but it's by far the best for importing Excel documents. A very
simple plain-text editor would be nano, but vim or emacs would give you
much more power.  The newest Mozilla is fairly snappy, so I wouldn't let
it scare you off, though the standard netscape 4.78 works well.

Good luck!

-- 
Chad Walstrom <chewie at wookimus.net>                 | a.k.a. ^chewie
http://www.wookimus.net/                            | s.k.a. gunnarr
Get my public key, ICQ#, etc. $(mailx -s 'get info' chewie at wookimus.net)
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