Cleaning up 'OLD' PC's

[benali72]

I would run DBAN to wipe the disk.  This is way quicker and more complete than trying to clean up Windows.  Many people who try to clean up Windows manually don't realize all the stuff it saves by default in its Registry (example -- a list of every website you've ever accessed).

After DBAN, then install Puppy Linux.  This runs well on any old computer down to 128M memory and runs entirely from memory (fast) on machines with 256M or more.  It only requires a gig or so of disk for the OS plus swap space.

Only install Ubuntu if you've got their minimum recommendation of 384M or better.  Unless these are all at least P-IV's I recommend Puppy instead.

[The Gorn]

With a web browser? That's sorta the lowest common denominator these days.

[DG9]

Puppy comes with a web browser, cool little OS...

[benali72]

What software Puppy comes with varies a bit by release.  All versions come with a standard GUI web browser.  The current default is SeaMonkey.  You can easily download Firefox, Opera, Galeon, and/or others from Puppy's free software repository.   (sorry, IE not available!  )

Puppy's default GUI is JWM.  You can download many others from the free software repository.  Icewm and Xfce are probably the most popular alternatives.  You could download and install Gnome or KDE but Puppy users generally don't like these resource-hungry hippos.

Bottom line-- Puppy is not much different from other Linuxes in its GUI and interface.