I guess that's possible, but I would add RAM first (easier and cheaper)

My comment was based on the OP's observation that:

"My CPU maxs out at near 100% just using it!
(Interesting though it only uses about 70mb of my 256mb RAM)"

As well as the warning on ubuntu.com that Xubuntu will run fine in 256mb of ram, but a 500mhz processor is "too slow."

Personally I would not spend more money to "improve" an old 500mhz computer. If I had extra RAM lying around I would absolutely use it, but it is silly to buy RAM that costs more than the computer is worth. :)

^
That's my feeling as well.

You know, I'm not sure where to go.
Clearly the OS runs fine until I open a program. I'm not sure if downloading another windows manager is going to make a difference.

OK, would that be the same as the little system resources program running at the top of the screen? It has that information. I'm not trying to be a dick, I mean is there a chance that application isn't accurate?

Also, I'm not really familiar with the "swap", what should I be looking for?

Also, Also, Can you guys remember I'm an extreme newb and don't really know how to run commands. Saying "run free" is helpful but listing the exact phrasing I need to type into the terminal would be MUCH more helpful, atleast till I start to get a better feel for all this.

Awesome, so when I type the code it doesn't need any "." or "/" ?



You know what I don't get!?

This computer was a work computer for a medium size business. A secretary used it and never complained about it being slow, then I'm told it was being used as server (not sure how accurate that is) and it worked fine.

Now I get it and it's like watching paint dry.



Oh well.

Your computer doesn't meet the recommended minimum hardware requirements for Xubuntu, therefore it is slow. That's the simplest way I know to say it. :)

The computer probably worked well for the secretary because it was running Windows XP, which of course is 9 years old and has lower minimum requirements.

Also, of course, most people did not use quad-core 8-gb-ram accelerated-graphics computers back then, so 500mhz probably seemed pretty fast when your computer was new.

WTF?

See that the thing.

It was even SLOWER with Windows XP! It took like 10 seconds just to close a window! And then it was like a slow melt away. That's the whole reason I started this move to Linux to begin with. Windows XP was so slow it was unusable.

And they weren't using this computer 9 years ago, it was still in use till a matter of months ago!

Sorry, what I meant to say was that, when I type your command into the terminal do I have to start it off with any kind of period or slash?

Which going back over this thread, I can see that I don't.

Sorry for the confusion.

Anyway, Midori is a great lightweight browser, but it is still in its early development stages and has a few bugs, glitches, and missing important features.

Still it's quite usable and enjoyable, and loads pages faster than Firefox.

500 MHz doesn't seem too bad to me. I use a 450 MHz system with 384 MB ram (its max). I used to use Gnome, and have used KDE in the past. I have now switched to Fluxbox (on Debian Lenny). When I switched from Gnome to Fluxbox, there wasn't a noticeable increase in speed. However, at times some applications would freeze when I was doing too much, and the frequency of that has gone down. IE, if I was doing several things, like changing a codec of a file from wmv to mpg with tovid, while typing a letter in OOo, and watching a movie with mplayer --> sometimes something would freeze. This still happens, but less frequently.

So, I suspect that no matter how much you slim down your system, it won't change the speeds that much.

the lightweight window managers will be faster than ANY of the desktop environments---although the actual speed of an application may not be affected all that much

If the CPU is running at a high utilization, it is because of the number of things it is being asked to do simultaneously. A slow CPU just means that all those things will happen more slowly. To reduce the CPU utilization, you have to stop processes.

Parallaxis;

I know you don't want to hear this but you actually might be able to get a faster CPU AND more RAM--all for under $100. If we can find out what the mainboard (motherboard) is, we can probably determine what processors it supports.

With regard to your angst about commands, I recommend going to http://tldp.org and getting the Bash Guide for Beginners. Just a couple of hours with this will make your life MUCH easier.

Finally, in one of your threads (we're trying to get them all merged), people are discussing other distros. Ubuntu is optimized to be Newbie-friendly, and not for speed.

The problem with "beginner friendly" distros is that they are packed with useless services and background tasks so the newbie will not have to go through the trouble of launching it if he/she needs it. But IMO less than 1% of users really need most of that bloat.

And I don't know why I haven't mentioned this before, but I have links to two wonderful Linux tutorials in my signature.

Well I did like M suggested above and opened Openbox with the Xfce toolbar. There was no improvement.