Originally Posted by
johnwash1
Hard to define "good", much as it's hard to say what PC is good for Windows. It depends what applications you want to run and what performance you expect.
If you can run XP on a PC then it's good enough to try out Linux, so a PC that's 10 years old is worth a try. When I say you can run XP, the original XP would run in 256MB of ram, but as more and more updates were released it got hungrier. So XP with service pack 3 (the last one) probably needs at least 512MB and when using a web browser it's clunky even then and 1GB makes quite a difference.
There are specialist versions of Linux that will work in less ram, but 1GB is probably the least you should aim for. After all, a couple of sticks of ram are cheap enough and easy to fit.
However, considering what people throw away, you should be able to scrounge a rather more capable pc, unless your friends are all Amish!