Linux OS for an old laptop?

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Hi...i found an old computer in the garbage that seems to work perfectly well but the cord must be plugged in.

Anyways...was wondering what kind of linux OS might be good to run on an old laptop with limited resources...like half a gig or ram and 40gb hard drive.

Actually, I had an old laptop handed to me and I have a similar question.

I'm taking college classes for computers and would like to experiment with this computer. I should learn more about servers and wonder if putting Ubuntu on it would be a good idea.

Archlinux.

I used a version called E-Live at a suggestion of a co worker-it works pretty good-the user interface has an Apple feel to it.

I have Ubuntu Studio x64 12.04 on a stick. I'm guessing here. If your old computer has a usb port, you can probably fix it in the bios to boot from the stick. It'll then just view your 40gb drive as storage space. It works well with my computer, but mine's up to date.

What are the specs on the computer? I would be hard pressed to run Ubuntu or Arch on old hardware with limited memory, but you might want to try Lubuntu, Crunchbang, or something else fairly light to run on older hardware with limited memory resources.

you also mifgt want to try puppy or damn small linux. then, there's always the old standby, slackware.

gonna try libuntu....

thanks all for the suggestions...

i am not sure on the ram....cannot open the bios? =/ have tried every key on the board at start to try and open it....will only give me a boot menu.
I dont know how the person prior to me tweeked it out.

40gb ram and has windows xp sticker on it...so im guessing around half a gig.