I've been trying out lots of linux distros (mostly newb distros cause thats what I am), and I've noticed that Mandriva seems to run very slow compared to the rest...
Why is this??
Is it just my computer or is Mandriva known for being a slow flavor of linux?
Its kind of frustrating, because Mandriva is the only thing I can get my wireless internet USB adapter working in, but it runs poorly compared to the others.

What other distros have you tried. Mandriva does use more resources that say Vector or Slackware but should be compairable to Fedora and Suse. You might need to shut some services off, Mandrake has a nice gui to adjust your system setting.

Also check "Kat" an indexing service that runs in the background right click on the icon in the tray if you have it

Welp, I reinstalled 2006 last night, (I actually tried out mandrake 10.1 I think it was, and it wouldnt work at all with my system. Wouldn't detect my mouse and all kinds of other wacky stuff.) and while I still think that I would like a different flavor better (Can't get any others to properly detect my wireless adapter with Ndiswrapper) it is running better than before after I did the things you people suggested. Thanks for that.

Probably just going to have to get a new wireless adapter sooner or later, as it seems like some german folks are having the same problem, and no one has been able to help them. heh.

What really, usually Mandriva is the best one to auto detect hardware and such. What about suse or opensuse that might work better.