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Have you tried to run Xubuntu? It runs xfce as the window manager and is suppose to have lighter hardware requirements. I would wait a bit on trying to get that distro or even access their site as the entire Ubuntu world is getting slammed right now.

The great majority of the planet is no where near the US economy, or even better countries like Japan, South Korea, or Germany.

How is a business that pays its workers $2.00 US a day for 12 hours work supposed to buy Microsoft Vista in a $2000 computer?

A 486 with xubuntu Linux running
enough power to keep records and communicate with the world by dial-up modem,
and that business might be the most wired business in town!

Not everybody can run out and buy a $500 iPhone with a $100 month phone plan (even if they could get cell coverage in their area...)

If you want an easy, out of the box solution go with Ubuntu or one of it's variants. http://www.ubuntu.com/ http://www.kubuntu.org/ http://www.xubuntu.org/

If you want to tinker with the OS a bit I'd suggest Slackware. http://www.slackware.com/ It isn't as easy to set up or maintain. However, you will have more of an opportunity to actually learn what is going on with they system.

There are several Linux distros for Mac hardware, just install one of those. I'd give regular Ubuntu a choice, and if that's too heavy-weight, try Xubuntu.

Ubuntu comes with a lot of software pre-installed, it feels a lot more responsive than OS X on the same hardware, and it has very much a Mac-like feel. I'm running it on an old iMac and have been quite happy with it.

Unfortunately, Xubuntu Eft seems to have a bug upgrading from Dapper, at least with the with the update-manager. I'm not sure if using the aptitude/apt-get method works any better. I believe you can burn the image to a CD and insert it and Xubuntu will ask you if you want to upgrade. Or you can probably mount the iso and add it to your repository to upgrade, as per an earlier post in this discussion.

Luckily Automatix seems to be ready for Eft, even if EasyUbuntu's site is down at the moment.

Unfortunately it seems that Xubuntu 6.10 (Ubuntu+XFCE) hasn't been launched yet. It's a shame though because XFCE seems so promissing.

You should try Xubuntu, a lighter distro based on Xfce Desktop environment. Memory requirements are 128 MB of Ram, and that 500 MHz Celeron should suffice.

For lower-end computers, it's recommended that you use the plain install CD. The LiveCD uses quite a bit of RAM, and installing from it uses even more. (Also, if you want it to run smoother on an older box, I'd recommend checking out the Xubuntu variant.)

"Older machine" covers a lot of ground. ME-stake could have come on anything from about a 266 MHz machine with 64 MB of RAM to a 800 MHz or so with 256 MB. I'd have very different recommendations depending upon which end of the spectrum the machine fell. First of all, I'd suggest upgrading the memory to at least 128 MB to run a modern full-sized distro.

For a really lower end box I'd suggest a Slackware-based distribution with XFCE like Vectorlinux or Zenwalk. Slackware itself is remarkable fast on older hardware. I have a 400 MHz/128 MB machine on the back porch running KDE on 10.2 with no problem, and while it isn't exactly zippy, it works fine (and I won't lose any sleep if the neighborhood kids decide they need the machine more than I do). But Slack requires quite a bit of time and some experience with Linux to set up (when will the mouse wheel work out of the box without editing xorg.conf?) Though I haven't used it much, PC-BSD also seemed adequate running KDE on an older box (128 MB), as well, and isn't as fiddly as Slack.

For a machine with a little more pop I think Freespire would be fine. Xandros free addition is a little dated (2004), but would also work well for someone with Windows experience. It's version of KDE is ancient and doesn't have tabs, but I think it would be more intuitive for first time Linux users. PCLinuxOS is easy to set up and comes with MPlayer configured to play Windows formats without the need for win32-codecs.

A lot of the pain of setting up a desktop Linux box is to set it up to deal with proprietary formats that you are likely to encounter on the net, things like Flash, Realplayer, various codecs, Java, DVDs, etc. Many distros have been actually removing proprietary stuff from their default installs (for instance, libdvdcss is no longer part of PCLinuxOS). So any distro that has tools available to easily add that stuff might make your life easier. EasyUbuntu and Automatix automate all that stuff for Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu and Mepis (Automatix), so that makes those distros very appealing. There is something similar available for Debian Etch and I suspect other projects like them are in the works for other major distros. (Anyone know?)

Bearing this in mind, I might suggest Xubuntu, the XFCE version of Ubuntu. It will run on 128 MB machines and the proprietary multimedia stuff is easy to add with those scripts. Plus, it has a very clean, simply interface that a new user would be less likely to find confusing. You can install from the liveCD "Desktop" edition if you have 192 MB of RAM or more or use the "Alternate CD" installation disc with 128 MB. I haven't tried it on a slow machine, but it is very snappy on my lappy.

xubuntu will run nicely on any computer designed for Windows ME. Debian with or without xfce is not really very suitable for a newbie.

Looks like it'd be a nice starting point for people wanting to get into Linux. But, personally, I still prefer (http://xubuntu.org/) xUbuntu along with Automatix (http://getautomatix.com/).

If Gnome and KDE are too resource-intensive for that computer, just use Xubuntu. It comes with Xfce 4.4, a very light and powerful desktop environment. IIRC, DSL uses Xfce as well. If that doesn't work, just install Fluxbox or Blackbox.

More importantly (for me), the first official release of Xubuntu (Xfce) is out.