Slackware :: Old P4 Laptop - Is Slack Still A Good Choice For Old Equipment

I apologize because I know this is really a worn out question, but I have a reason for asking. My wife gave me this laptop in December 2003 as a Christmas gift. At the time it was state of the art and she spent over ?1100 on it. It is a Samsung V25, P4 2.8Ghz 1GB memory 40GB HD. It still has the original XP home OS on it, and when I got a new laptop a couple of years ago, I let her have it to use because she refuses to use Linux and she did not have a laptop. Well, she stopped using it when she got netbook and it has been jut lying around. After so many years of use, as you might expect Windows now just crawls with so much crap on it and is very unpredictable (might work might not.)

My thought is that she might start using it again (and I certainly would), if I could show her that there is still plenty of life left in it. I KNOW that Slack will be faster, but before I wipe the drive (she is still kind of sentimental about me doing that), and I want to see if I can get a couple of comments about the hardware and what trouble I might expect. I ask because I have tried dozens of live CDS, and some work and some don't. For example, the newest Knoppix would not run (freezes when it tries to start X.) Anyway, the specs are

Display: Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PL
Sound: Crystal WDM AC'97 ICH4

This thing has most of the goodies that loaded laptops offered in those days (i.e. 1394 port). I am most concerned about the display because I have read about others who have had difficulty with Intel graphics. It is my intention to -Current on it, since it runs great on my main laptop. So if someone could just offer a little bit of their experience with similar old equipment