I have to recomennd Fuduntu, now completetly forked from Fedora but still uses .rpm for packages.

Great for laptops since it got Jupiter applet, and ATI gfx cards works like a charm.

http://fuduntu.org

Jupiter
http://www.jupiterapplet.org/

Im a pretty new Google+ user, dont really call myself addicted yet =D

Still need tobuild my friend network.

Welcome :)

Well saving that old computer sounds great, i have also done that with an old laptop, managed to run it fast and stable using Crunchbang.
Thats the beauty of Linux.

Yeah sure =)

its not the most updated one but seems to have been around for a long time, and for some more basic stuff like playing mp3s i guess it might be a good one.

Let me know

Here is my desktop desktop.
So standard as it could be =)

LMDE running rock solid for most of my needs, will post of the laptop aswell (that one running Elementary for testing purposes)
Also got another desktop for my music equipment but that ones under construction, gonna add Ubuntu Studio stuff and some VM running XP.

Well there are some of those tiny ones, Puppylinux,DamnSmallLinux.
They can be used from a usb stick.

Heres a link with some info about some of them.
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/whats-best-lightweight-linux-distro

Yeah that one worked good for me, chatted with both video and voice with a friend who had a Mac and i had Debian i think.

Hmm guess you could choose between different ones, maybe try some minimal installation and just add the musicplayer of choice.
How much RAM does your laptop have?

Welcome aboard :)

looks really nice to live on a boat.

when you start your computer you should see a logo that says "Ubuntu 10.10" or something else.