I want to download Lenny or Etch for my OS, and want Compiz, but my computer is a pentium 3. Is it worthwhile getting Lenny instead of Etch?

What are you using the machine for?
If you are using the machine as a desktop then go for Lenny/Testing.
Etch is nearing the end of its lifespan,so unless you want to run a server use Lenny.
Just my opinion though.....

Regards.
The trooper.

Believe it or not... Lenny is in many ways faster than Etch. Etch is about 18 months since its release. I have been following Testing since then, and at a certain moment booting went twice as fast, OpenOffice launches two or three time faster, and to my surprise (saw that this afternoon) uploading a project in Quanta went 3 times as fast.

So, in Linux a new version is faster as compared to the old one, have you seen that before

Not sure if Compiz runs on a PIII. You'd need a VGA with GLX which means a relatively modern VGA card. Most modern cards are AGP 4x or 8x, while PIII mainboards provide AGP 1x or AGP 2x. Welcome in the world of ever increasing development to incompatability.

If you have a VGA card which can run GLX, you might want to go for Compiz, although the hardware looks minimal. I recommend the upgrade to Lenny anyway.

jlinkels