You've received lots of helpful ideas. Make sure you run
System-Administration-Hardware Drivers and find a "non-free" driver for your
video adapter. Nothing works well until the right driver is activated - and
it will find and download at least one choice.

I'd only add that the fun of Linux is that there is so much variety and new
distributions are constantly being released for you to try out. The creator
of Linux, Linus Torvalds, called his book "Just for fun". Linux does demand
more of the user than Windows, but it's so much more secure and stable that
it's worth the effort. Don't be discouraged, but don't expect to find your
ideal version right away.

If you want some suggestions: for a really small and cute distro: Puppy
Linux. All most of us could ever use in 100 MB! For the same basic core as
Ubuntu with a different look try Kubuntu. I had display problems that I
could never solve with Ubuntu but Kubuntu runs fine with high resolution.
Check out www.distrowatch.com and find something that looks interesting, but
be sure you choose a "distribution" release, not a "development" release,
which is still not stable and finalized.