My Parents' Dell Dimension 2400 must be close to 10 years old. I told them that I would get them a new computer, but ran into lots of resistance. Seems that once you are lucky enough to live into your 80's, you like those things you are familiar with.

So, I'm looking for advice on upgrading their processor and memory capacity. They didn't do much more than some light internet browsing, playing music from their pretty large iTunes library and getting email photos from or of grandchildren. A few years back, I transferred much of this to a 500 Gig external hard drive. Now, Mom has started a new hobby of family genealogy and is complaining about how slow the pages load.

I opened the side panel on the tower and can guess (with some certainty) that I am tha first to do so since it left the manufacter's plant. It definately needs a cleaning before/during/after the upgrade. I invite any advice on how and when to do the cleaning.

It's all original components: Intel Celeron 2.40 GHZ

                                            256 MB RAM

                                            INTEL 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV (I assume this is the Video Card)

                               running 2002 Windows XP HOME EDITION 32 Bits w/ SP3

I would like to get them off Windows and onto Unbuntu, but have no knowledge of how, or if, this would affect the choices of new components.

The research I have done leads me to think that a new 2.8 GHZ processor with 2 Gigs of RAM (2 STICKS of I Gig each) would give Mom all the speed she needs. But, again, don't know what components are compatable or even if these choices are the ones she needs. What do you'all think?

                                                Thanks, Tmoose