Looking for a "spin" doctor.... aka.... Newbee!
 

I very much remember my first computer, a Commodore C64! What a computer! I joined a user group called UPCUG stands for Upper Peninsula Commodore Users Group.... Only dial-up in those days as the Internet was barley there!
Hung on to the format as long as I could and I think it was 1993 before I stepped into a Windows machine, I ran Castle Wolfenstein a lot in those days! Still no Internet for me....
1997 was the first foray into the "Net" on a brand new Hewlet Packard desktop with Windows 98, HooHa! So much for the history.
January 2009 my Windows Vista HD crashed, saved what I could to several discs and counted my blessings. Bucks for a new machine or fire up the "found" E Machine....

I'm too cheap! What the devil is Ubuntu???

I have this friend who runs Debian, he told me the meaning of this OS. Since I was locked out I downloaded a copy of Ubuntu 9.10 and I have not looked back since! Much smoother than any Win OS I have ever used but lacking in some things and that is why I am here!
The cheap E Machine runs fine but sure gets winded at times so on to something better and I shall delve into Linux with this one or maybe Debian?

Questions to follow! Rod aka poikaa

If you enjoyed how Ubuntu runs try debian it use a lot less resources, during installation choose "Advanced Options" "Expert Mode" & you can enable non-free repos.

As great as Linux is, and I would suggest moving to Debian to customize the system further and make it run leaner, you may be starting to get to a point where you will need to upgrade to a newer machine or face continued degraded performance. Security updates, etc eventually take their toll on performance on older machines. Some things to increase longevity include increasing RAM to MAX and replacing the hard drive with a 7200rpm if it doesn't all ready have one. Just another angle as your try to try to optimize to improve performance.