I gave away a similar machine, a Portege 320CT, a few years ago. That model had a 266Mhz Pentium MMX CPU, 96MB of RAM and the oldest WSVGA (1024x600) LCD I've ever seen. It was quite tiny, close to a modern Netbook in overall dimensions but about a pound heavier.
Pros: I'm one of those weirdos that actually like the pointer stick.
Cons: Even a few years ago it was getting pretty borderline trying to fit "modern" software onto a machine that small. You're lucky you have twice as much RAM, but the 800x600 screen is likely to get on your nerves. (I'm sort of curious why they discontinued the widescreen on the later PII models.) If you go with Linux try XFCE... GNOME or KDE is sheer suicide. I personally also thought the build quality was pretty ***p. I'll admit the unit I had had been "ridden hard and put away wet" by the exec that used it before it ended up in my paws, so your mileage may vary. Among other things it had a "squeeze right here or wiggle the hinge if the screen starts spazzing out" problem, and overall I just thought it felt a little... plastic-y and tacky. (Like every other Toshiba of that vintage. I don't really get it, actually... the machines were heavy and seemed to have reasonably solid chassis, but the outer shells were just "bleah". And what the heck was with that weird pinky-blue-beige-??? color they used?) In my opinion you could have easily wielded a Thinkpad 600 as a hammer and used it to completely demolish the Portege without damaging the Thinkpad in the slightest. :^b
I guess the person I gave it to liked it. It stands out in my memory as the very last machine I ever ran Slackware on.
Pros: I'm one of those weirdos that actually like the pointer stick.
Cons: Even a few years ago it was getting pretty borderline trying to fit "modern" software onto a machine that small. You're lucky you have twice as much RAM, but the 800x600 screen is likely to get on your nerves. (I'm sort of curious why they discontinued the widescreen on the later PII models.) If you go with Linux try XFCE... GNOME or KDE is sheer suicide. I personally also thought the build quality was pretty ***p. I'll admit the unit I had had been "ridden hard and put away wet" by the exec that used it before it ended up in my paws, so your mileage may vary. Among other things it had a "squeeze right here or wiggle the hinge if the screen starts spazzing out" problem, and overall I just thought it felt a little... plastic-y and tacky. (Like every other Toshiba of that vintage. I don't really get it, actually... the machines were heavy and seemed to have reasonably solid chassis, but the outer shells were just "bleah". And what the heck was with that weird pinky-blue-beige-??? color they used?) In my opinion you could have easily wielded a Thinkpad 600 as a hammer and used it to completely demolish the Portege without damaging the Thinkpad in the slightest. :^b
I guess the person I gave it to liked it. It stands out in my memory as the very last machine I ever ran Slackware on.