hi, well i have an old laptop pentium 360mhz so its not that up to date, it was just one that we found when we moved recently. Right now it has a Windows 98 and i cant really use it for anything. I have been wanting to experiment with linux for sometime, but didnt reall want to mess with my other good computers. So this is a great way to experiment withiut really messing anything important up. I was thinking of buying linux red hat, but was looking for some free software, if possible. I was looking at SimplyMEPIS because ive read many reviews and it looks pretty easy to use and it automatically gives you Openoffice ad other programs. Any suggestions

Yes, SimplyMEPIS is easy to use. It's main advantage is that it's based upon Debian. It can use Debian repositories if you wish to add more software. Debian has huge repository of packages.
Just one command
Surely, a nice ditro for new linux users. Another option would be Ubuntu or Kubuntu. It is also Debian based and is quite easy.
I use Kubuntu on my laptop and it works quite fine.

Finding the right distibution depends on how much memory is installed in the laptop. From what I have read the min is 64MB but it is not going run very will. It may be sluggish using KDE or Gnome since these desktops need more memory. You can use a light weight wimdow manager instead like fluxbox.