Linux for a secondary laptop?

My 3 yr old laptop has a barely functioning copy of Win XP Media Center Edition on it. It didn't come with a restore disc, and the partition it was installed on has gone corrupt. So I'd like to install another OS on it.

Thought about purchasing a new XP disc, but would prefer not to dump any money on it. Which is why I'm considering going Linux.

So will my laptop, which I use primarily for reviewing, annotating, and storing photos on during travels, play well with Linux?

Averatec 2370
AMD Turion 64x2 1.6 GHz
1GB ram
built-in wifi
DVD burner

And what photo browsing software for Linux? I'm looking for something fast, that allows annotating of photos (preferably via xmp so Adobe can read it). Something along the lines of Photo Mechanic. Free is better. Any suggestions?

Thanks!