If you're trying to revive an old PC by installing Linux, you may find that the newer distros are often as resource hungry as windows, giving poor performance. I found a fast and very cool looking solution, a window manager called FVWM-Crystal. Start with a common distro like Ubuntu or Debian to get all the apps you need, then run sudo apt-get install fvwm-crystal. Once it's done log out and log back in to the FVWM-Crystal window manager (you're old desktop will still be available).
You'll notice a sweet theme with lots of transparency. It's quite customisable from the menu, play with the recipe's to get a task bar system that suits you, and the window decorations to make your windows look nicer. I like the Nebulae recipe with Gentoo windows. To add wallpapers copy images into a folder called ~/wallpapers (~/ means your home directory). To top it off customise firefox to suit, I like the vista areo theme and island persona.
Some handy shortcuts to know when you select a recipe with no task bars are Alt-menu and alt-right windows key to bring up the crystal and applications menus.
If this doesn't suit your taste, another lightweight window manager you could try is IceWM with the VistaBlack theme to make it familiar to windows users. Or you could grab the Linux Mint LXDE or Fluxbox versions.
UPDATE: I have found that Ubuntu based distributions even when using light desktops and window managers tend to run slow on limited resources. Even for crunchbang which seems to be the lightest of these options. You could try installing fvwm-crystal on a debian net-install, but I have found Slitaz to be the best option for hardware more than a couple of years old.
You'll notice a sweet theme with lots of transparency. It's quite customisable from the menu, play with the recipe's to get a task bar system that suits you, and the window decorations to make your windows look nicer. I like the Nebulae recipe with Gentoo windows. To add wallpapers copy images into a folder called ~/wallpapers (~/ means your home directory). To top it off customise firefox to suit, I like the vista areo theme and island persona.
Some handy shortcuts to know when you select a recipe with no task bars are Alt-menu and alt-right windows key to bring up the crystal and applications menus.
If this doesn't suit your taste, another lightweight window manager you could try is IceWM with the VistaBlack theme to make it familiar to windows users. Or you could grab the Linux Mint LXDE or Fluxbox versions.
UPDATE: I have found that Ubuntu based distributions even when using light desktops and window managers tend to run slow on limited resources. Even for crunchbang which seems to be the lightest of these options. You could try installing fvwm-crystal on a debian net-install, but I have found Slitaz to be the best option for hardware more than a couple of years old.
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