There are a few linux distros that will run on older hardware and bring it back to life. I have run Mandrake(older Mandriva), Suse, Fedora, Frugalware Knoppix, and Vector all on older hardware. Actually I am running Fedora Core 6 on an old 466 with 128 mbs of RAM and maybe a 16MB graphics card. It runs slow at times, but workable. I wouldn't recommend Fedora on your system since it isn't the best one to learn on. I have Vector running on another system that has slightly better specs then the one I listed and it runs much better. If you really want to get a look at linux, you can go to www.distrowatch.com and do a search onthere for LiveCD's. That way you can test how they will run on your system and never have to install anything to your drive.

Linux can be daunting when you first start. When I first got into using Linux, I had no previous expereince with it whatsoever, got myself a copy of mandrake installed it and started to use it. Pretty much every Linux distro these days comes with some sort of GUI interface, not all of them though come with a gui install. I personally don't like Mandriva since my experience with that and Suse and Fedora or Red Hat is that they are all bloated with software that you don't really need. Also, with the few people on here that use Linux, or FreeBSD you will have a pretty good resource of help.