This should really be a rant about the bastard that 'donated' a heap of XP computers from a recycle bin to the women's shelter... but I learned something.
You can get Raspian (now called Raspberry PiOS) for old PCs. Good lightweight useable Debian.
Works on an old Celeron Toshiba that maxes out at 1 GB RAM
Works on an Aspire One 1.5GB with only 8GB SSD
Works decently on an AsusEEE 202 Atom chip w 2GB
Smokes on a Ryzen 3600 6 core w 16GB.... but of course so does the latest Mint Cinnamon and Ubuntu Mate 20.10...

Tried many other Lite Linux distros over the years and wasn't thrilled, but this one's way less disgusting.

   

The Pi also has a sub $100 computer and keyboard all in one that actually looks pretty cool.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11 ... ou-needed/

   

Successfully resisted all urges to buy myself a Pi 400 this Christmas. Had a 64GB SD card all loaded with PiMiga shitload of retrogames all prepared for one.

   

OMG saw old thread about supposedly recycled computers ending up in the dump. Bullshit, they're ending up on my workbench!
Getting impatient in my old age, I shudder seeing spinner hard drives and DVDs & USB 2.0
I swear my Pi4 running off an SD card is faster than 90% of the Windows shitboxes people bring me. FFS, had 2 ppl just now "upgrade" to 6 year old Windows 10 this week.
You can run Windows10 on a Raspberry Pi now, but you should be shot if you want to.

   

I'll probably be grabbing a pi 400 soonish to run as a thinclient steam streamer in a guest bedroom.