Sounds like a good way to make use of old eMachines, at a large discount too.
Finally, the year of the Linux Desktop! (eMachine edition)
I have had to do it one or two years ago for my previous installation, but that's because I was using Debian on a computer whose WiFi card does not have open source drivers. But in Ubuntu it worked out of the box, and I think it may work out of the box on Debian too now that they include non free firmware by default.
You only need to install special drivers manually if you use a distro that is a bit "advanced".