You can run linux from a floppy disk. How much bloat you add is up to you.
Floppy disk? Haha!
That must be a floppy disk or a lightweight distro I never heard of. The last floppy disks I had held 1.44MB. I don't think there were very many with higher capacities in popular use.
Linux Mint 18.3 has a download size of 1.7+GB.
And I don't think dennisw was asking about a lightweight distro, since the article is about Mint 18.3.