This was asked on one of my favourite IRC-channels today. What would you suggest?

I need to get my mom a new computer. Sounds easy enough, but there's two issues... my mom is handicapped and not very mobile, and she needs

a) email
b) word processing
c) web browsing

in a simple interface without virusses and other meta-problems. So far, she's been using Windows 98, which is totally dissatisfying in this respect. The first problem can be solved by getting her a laptop with wireless ethernet so she doesn't always have to go up the stairs to the computer. The second would be solved by getting her either a carefully setup Linux which I would be more than happy to maintain, or OS X. My mom has indicated to be quite OK with Linux, as long as she doesn't have to administrate it. She seems comfortable with simple GTK mailers, Mozilla (which she already uses in Windows) and OpenOffice.org. On OS X I would be able to provide her with Microsoft Office v. X. The thing is, if I used Linux, I'd have to set up OpenOffice.org, which would require a very hefty laptop, and we're trying to limit the costs. The other solution, which would probably be an iBook, is expensive as well, Especially since you can't use all the cheap wifi cards with OS X. Another option would be to get a really cheap laptop (the oldest I could find that would play nice with a wireless ethernet card) and use it to do remote X to the desktop upstairs (a Duron 700 with 256 MB of memory) However, that would suck again, as my brother would rebel against removing his Windows.

What do I do?
A) Linux on second-hand PII-class laptop
B) OS X on iBook
C) Remote X on a PI-class laptop (11 mbit is enough to do remote X)