I recently inherited an old Dell Inspiron 7500 from work because it was "dead"....read that as wouldn't install WinXP.
After a trip to Best Buy to replace the stripped out ram with a 256 stick [they nic'd the HDD too ] & pick up a network connection because it's not included. I picked up a Linksys USB200M USB 2.0 to 10/100 ethernet network doggle. First I tried it with Mepis [my latest fav] but it wouldn't detect... so I pulled out my trusty Knoppix disk!
Well, I had success! for a matter of fact I'm typing RIGHT NOW from my newly restored laptop. Knoppix really isn't that bad on a 500MHz system...provided you got the ram.
Koppix...Gotta Love It!!!
ACASIS 2.5/3.5 inch 2 Bay SATA USB 3.0 Hard Drive Disk HDD SSD Enclosure 4 RAID
$58.99
Cisco UCS LSI MegaRAID 9271CV-8I SAS2308 PCIe SAS Internal RAID Controller
$28.00
Intel PCIe SSD AIC RAID Controller Card G97168-252
$44.55
Oracle 7085209 LSI MegaRAID SAS 9361-8i 1GB Cache 12Gbps SAS/SATA PCIe RAID Card
$28.20
LSI MegaRAID 9361-8i 12Gb PCIe 8-Port SAS/SATA RAID 1Gb w/BBU/CacheVault/License
$39.95
ORICO Multi Bay RAID Hard Drive Enclosure USB 3.0/ Type-C For 2.5/3.5'' HDD SSDs
$82.49
LSI MegaRAID 9361-8i 12Gbps PCIe 3 x8 SATA SAS 3 8 Port RAID + BBU & CacheVault
$39.00
Oracle Sun 8-Port 6 Gbps SAS/SATA Raid Controller PCIe w/Cables 7055240 7047503
$13.49
4 Bay RAID External Hard Drive Enclosure for 2.5/3.5" SATA HDD/SSD
$79.99
G TECHNOLOGY G RAID 0G04228 2-Bay Thunderbolt 2 RAID Array W/Power Supply
$99.99