Need a *nix distro recommendation

[imported_mostlyprudent]

I have an old PC that I want to convert to a bsic Linux box that my kids can use for web surfing, email, word processing work. Here are the specs:
MB - Abit TH7-II (Intel 850)
CPU - Intel P4 2.2A
RAM - 768MB RDRAM
GPU - ATi Radeon 8500

Any suggestions or gotchas?

 

[QuixoticOne]

Give UBUNTU 8.04.1 a try. Usually the more modern the distrubution the better it'll work with random esoteric hardware that they might not have gotten around to writing drivers for in past years. Usually the core PC stuff is backward/forward compatible enough that it'll work with most any distribution.

SUSE or Fedora wouldn't be bad choices either AFAIK.

Download the Ubuntu Desktop CD and the Fedora Live CD and the SUSE Live CD (I think there is one) and you can try them out on your hardware without going through the full install process just by booting the CDs.

Gotchas? I wouldn't expect the power management to work, the ACPI in one BIOS / system designs was pretty bad.
Maybe hibernate might work...maybe.

 

[sourceninja]

Yea, ubuntu will run great on that setup. The ati 8500 is a very awesome linux video card. If it is a little slow, you can always try xubuntu, but I have found ubuntu usually runs just as well.

 

[efc321]

Try PCLinuxOS.

 

[imported_mostlyprudent]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try booting to couple different CDs this weekend and see what I get.

 

[accguy9009]

Mandriva 2008.1 works great for me on much older hardware than you plan on using. PCLinux is a good choice also.