StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Two unrelated questions in one thread:

1. What would be a good light-weight Linux distro for a slowly dying Dell Insprion 5150? I just need to get another 9-12 months of life out of it. Oh and the distro has to support a generic PCMCIA wifi card (one I get it from my friend).
2. Does anyone have any recommendations for good Trackballs? Logitech makes a nice one that sort-of fits my hand, but uses the 2.4 Ghz spectrum and could really hurt the wifi in about half of the house.

I've been getting good mileage out of my netbook after installing Lubuntu, a semi-official variant of Ubuntu. What really made it usable was installing LibreOffice, the Ubuntu official PDF reader, evince (the default Lubuntu reader had no option to smoothly scroll between pages, it would just jump from one to the other), and a media player that I didn't need a manual to use (rhythmbox). No idea how feasible installing those heftier applications is for you, as I don't know how much RAM your laptop has.

Sorry, I don't know enough to discuss any of your other questions.

PS: When searching for "lubuntu" on google, it will automatically correct it to "ubuntu". Use +lubuntu to force it to use that specific "word".