[PLUG] Pls recommend distro for kids PC

[Makarand Mhaiskar]

Hello,

A shelter for 8-10 kids where I do some volunteer work is using an old comp
with Win98 on it. It's a Celeron 733MHz, 128 MB RAM but 1.2 GB hard disk and
an old monitor that can do 800x600 max.

I originally installed some games and a few funny videos for the kids, but
nothing more due to lack of space. Recently, when I ran Knoppix live CD on
it, I was amazed to see all the decent amount of s/w they have packed in
there, and it's quite fast too. Ubuntu didn't do well. It was too slow to
load and froze at one point. So I tried installing it but it said min space
required was 1.8 GB or something so I gave up.

My questions:
1. Do you know of a good distro that's lightweight (think 1.2 GB HD), but
has enough stuff to keep the kids interested? Not just games but some
educational s/w too.
2. Is FreeDuc a good option or is it too educational?
3. What do you think of running Knoppix Live CD all the time but writing
files/config etc. to the hard disk? This is something I have thought of
doing but didn't spend enough time to see if it can be done.

Thanks in advance,
-Makarand