Stephen, If you have the hard drive space, you might also consider installing Linux on the machine to dual-boot. The machine I am using at the moment is a 600-mhz Pentium II I picked up for very little...added a hard drive I already had and stuck in 512 MB of RAM I also had. It works very well indeed.
The CD problem is easily solved--especially if you have a computer flea market or a recycling center. If you look on any sizeable newsstand, you can find magazines with CD versions of various Linux distributions--or you can order them from places like cheapbytes.com. Another source is to order a CD for free--although it may take a while to arrive, from Ubuntu's "shipit" program. I use Kubuntu, the KDE version, which is also free. LyX, as you may know, has two UNIX interfaces--one uses an XForms frontend, the other uses the QT toolset--which is also that used by KDE. You will find that Internet surfing and most other activities you do will go faster in Linux than in Windows--although there will be a learning curve involved. If you have a few GB of hard drive space, though, you can easily set up the machine to give you a choice at boot time between Windows and Linux. If the rest of your machine is compatible, adding a CD reader shouldn't run more than $20 or so. David
