Ok, the consensus (and I've got no problem with it) is

"Emachines is Acer's low end with Acer being the mid and Gateway the high
end. The build quality is lower and they skimp on features, but they are
decent enough if you do not mind that."

"Emachines are known as cheap computers."

The two statements above are paraphrased of course, and I do appreciate the
feedback.

I will not in any way argue with said feedback as it seems an accurate
assessment
of my computing situation.

It's an old and low-end machine, and as such, it may perform erratically or
inconsistently
with certain software. The machine shipped out with Windows XP Media center,
and is "vista ready".


So, since 10.04.3 LTS is (so far) rock-solid on this machine, I think I will
keep it,
and look for ways to make the machine perform as fast as possible.