Interesting. I'm using the version of Linux Mint which corresponds to Ubuntu
9.04, and I'm happy with it. The first time I ran into something odd with audio
I removed pulseaudio, but otherwise it's a "normal" installation.

I use Cinelerra, GIMP, apache, audacity, VLC, Skype, Firefox and Chrome, lots of
others, and I try out all kinds of applications.

It's a relatively new system, Phenom II X2 with 4 GB of RAM.