Any good basic guitar lessons online (pref free)?

No one every responded? Just out of curiosity, is this for you, Don, or someone else, a kid? You might want to try one of those Rikky Rooksby books. Also Chord Progressions for Jazz and Popular Guitar by Arnie Berle.

Hal Leonard Guitar Method Book 1 is a common place to start. It's very dry , but it shows you around the guitar and gives you the basics of melody and rhythm playing.

You might find some good lessons digging around youtube, but I haven't looked into anything.

A number of guitar magazines publish their columns online or have blogs. Most of them that I've seen are at least for intermediate-level playing, but there might be something for beginners out there.

Not necessarily for beginners but just found some good stuff here: http://www.tuckandpatti.com/tuckscorner.shtml#goodies

Don, I think I found what you are looking for:
http://www.guitarnoise.com/lessons/