Old Toshiba Tecra S1: Which Distro for a New Learner?

[Ultralight]

I received this old Toshiba laptop from my sister in 2008 where she kept it in her closet for a year after being given away by her company. From what I have researched this model was offered in the first half of the 2000s. It was used hard which was evident by the myriad of user accounts I cleaned off. I had put it away and left it be after doing upgrades but it was so slow with the wifi connection that just put it away and moved on. Yesterday I hauled it from storage and decided part it out when it came to me that perhaps it could run Linux.

I have been wanting to learn Linux, heard it runs well on older hardware, and I have used a Live CD of Mint for diagnostic purposes. I would like to learn a whole lot more. Anyway...

Here is the hardware:
1. Pentium M 1.4 GHz
2. Two gigs of PC 2100 memory @ 133 MHz -- I installed
3. 120 gig hard drive -- I installed; currently running XP Pro that I migrated off the original Hitache 40 gig hard drive
4. ATI Radeon 9000 4x AGP
5. Latest and last BIOS from 2005 -- I updated
6. Atheros a/b/g (possibly g) wifi - Will this be a main problem?

Would love to hear your thoughts and what Distro recommendations you think as a newbie I should consider. I have looked at Puppy Linux but was wondering if there are other offerings I should look into. Crunchbang is no longer supported.

Thanks.

 

[lxskllr]

Puppy is nice, but not a great beginner distro imo. It's a little too light, and if things don't work perfectly at first, it's not as easy to deal with. Lubuntu should run tolerably well on that. It'll feel familiar, with a lot of community support options.

 

[Ultralight]

Puppy is nice, but not a great beginner distro imo. It's a little too light, and if things don't work perfectly at first, it's not as easy to deal with. Lubuntu should run tolerably well on that. It'll feel familiar, with a lot of community support options.

Thanks for the response; much appreciated. On further research I have learned that my Pentium M is a non-PAE cpu which means I need to find a Distro such as Bodhi Legacy offering.

Thanks again.

 

[lxskllr]

Thanks for the response; much appreciated. On further research I have learned that my Pentium M is a non-PAE cpu which means I need to find a Distro such as Bodhi Legacy offering.

Thanks again.

Forgot about pae. Debian still offers legacy support. It's not as easy to install/work with as the *buntus, but it's not hard either, and shares a lot features with *buntu since they're all forks of Debian. Expect a little more fiddling if you go that route, but once you've got it going, it'll be a solid system.

 

[sbpromania]

Have you considered Lubuntu? It should run well on your specs, and considering that it's compatible with Ubuntu repositories it's a big plus.