OK. What are your system specs........

Ubuntu 10.04 compares favourably with Windows 7 and OS/X, its competition.
It falls down on gaming, but that is another issue. Using your assumption,
then Windows 7 should be as comparably fast as Windows 95 was in its time
and so on. As we know that isn't the case. We can do things on our computers
not even dreamed of in those days, multi-tasking, running virtual machines,
video editing, streaming multi-media, HDR photography, social media, VOIP,
etc. As we add multi-core processors and more RAM we always raise the bar
and demand more of our computers.

I have been using desktop computers since in 1982 and have always run my
computers at an extreme whether it was my first Apple II or my netbook. As
the computers got more sophisticated, then I pushed things to even more
extremes. Users are always pushing the envelope.

As new things come along and users want them, then the kernel which is
relatively small grows. More libraries and dependencies are added. When my
computer boots it loads many daemons from Bluetooth support to cryptography
plus it mounts several different devices and file systems. Life is no longer
the same and we can not compare today with simpler times.

I remember when we were told that the next generation would work a 30 hour
work week and have lots of leisure time. The opposite has happened. We work
more, don't get as much vacation time, don't get enough sleep and bosses
demand that we be ever more productive. In the brave new world we are
plugged in like at no time and we keep on buying more. We live in a consumer
society and operating systems have tried to keep up. I don't blame Microsoft
and Apple. We can't turn back the clock, but we can tune out.

What you call bloatware may be just a case of running the wrong OS. There
are alternatives in the Linux world. If you want a faster, leaner system
then you should run something like Arch which only adds what you want
instead of Ubuntu.

There can also be other issues that influence GUI speed. For example, both
Gnome and KDE run faster on the service laptop, an HP with 2 GHz processor and 1
GB of RAM than on my PC that has a 2.66 Ghz processor. On the laptop a quite new
and clean copy of XP was just a little faster than the KDE3.5 and Gnome used in
Kubuntu 8.04. On my PC, Windows XP was a lot faster.
Typically here in Romania, in about 4-6 months XP gets so stuffed with malware
that it is slower than anything. There are some exceptions, however, with XP
being usable for years on end and then something happens, like it does not
recognize any flash drives, cannot open CDs or copy pictures from the camera
and, although otherwise it is OK it has to be reinstalled.
Of course, when problems appear in Windows the user that has no idea gets
really scared. For example, in my case, when XP slowed down to a crawl on my PC
for the first time I thought I would have to buy another PC !!! A nice colleague
of mine, whose flash drives were no longer recognized by the OS thought they
were all broken and she would have to throw them away !!! A friend with a nice
"ntldr is missing" black screen mistakenly thought he lost all his data !!!
On a Linux box such things do not happen. Any user is far better protected.

i agree, xp + 7 are faster at first but it degrades after a while,with my
netbook i was running windows 7 a week later it started to get slower, a month
later 1 minute start up time, thats when i dual-booted linux on the netbook I
have had it on other computers, but i didnt really want to touch the netbook
till the warranty ended, but oh well

Will Arch autoconfigure the things I add or will I have to
learn all the dependencies and Sudo commands? I haven't been able to master the
makefile/make concept yet. Might as well be greek.

All I need is Internet Browsing, Audio recording, HD Video Editing, E-mail, and
Forth Programming (learning, educational)(Games would be nice, too). I realize
these are demanding applications.

I have an Alisis Pro8 (I think is the name) USB mixer I'd like to be able to
use for recording and a Sanyo Exacti HD 720P camera for HD Videography. It would
be nice to have a minimal system that could run these. I'm trying to install the
KDENLive USB system but so far haven't got access to the Web for installation
completion, though I have the install files loaded on a 4Gig USB Flash Drive.
I'm a little worried to use someone elses computer to install (Don't want to
crash their Windows system and have them paying and kissing MS butt to get it
loaded up again.)

Oh, my hardware is a fairly new P4 motherboard can't recall the brand. I'll try
to post it later. My apartment computer has been wireless-less for many months,
I suspect due to some nefarious low level malware from some subversive NWO
agency trying to silence my political activist voice. Or could be some files
sharing Linux CPU time thiefs working. I can't afford to go cable or DSL these
days and NYC Wireless is supposed to be available. I used to use it all the time
with a USB wireless device. But can never get on these days.

Arch is really good. It has a package manager called Pacman (
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman). It takes care of dependencies
for you. Where Arch shines is that it install a bare bones system with no
GUI at all. You need to add whatever you want to make it work. It is getting
down to the bare bones of Linux. Their documentation is among the very best.
There are also community maintained repositories (AUR), like Ubuntu PPAs.
However, at this time you can only update from Arch's own repositories. Many
users would like to have updates to AUR installed applications, so this may
come down the road. You should not attempt to install Arch unless you have
patience and a willingness to learn from the commandline. It takes time to
set it up, but once it is working it is rock solid and fast.

I would also recommend Zenwalk which is Slackware based and works for
beginners to advanced users. Slackware is one of the oldest Linux
distributions (1993) that is popular among universities. Zenwalk is one of
the simplest Slack distros. If you like Slack then Vector Linux might work
for you, too. Both Vector and Zenwalk have GUIs and graphical installers.

If you want something that is fast, but more mainstream then try PCLinuxOS
(comes in 32 bit only). If you want more then do a search for optimised
Linux distributions.

Thanks for all the info on speedy linux distros. Right now I'm trying to install
that KDENLive USB before I worry about anything else. I finally thought I got a
Forth or two loaded but can't seem to bet one of them needs nasm and another
needs vm, so I'm still dead in the water without being on line.

Is a Linux machine a boat anchor without a live Internet connection?

You don't need an internet connection to run linux. Linux software comes
on CDs andDVDs.

You don't need an internet connection to run linux. Linux software for a
number of distros comes on CDs and DVDs. But, if you have no source
of software except via a nonexistent network connection, then you're out
of luck regardless of the OS.

This will appear in the next issue of Full Circle Magazine:

Q The computer I use doesn't have an internet connection and I browse the web
on another PC elsewhere. How can I download Ubuntu packages so that I can save
them on my USB flash drive and take them back to install them on the offline PC?

A Go to the web site "packages.ubuntu.com" then select your version, and then
the application you want.

When an application needs something else to be installed (dependancy), the web
site will show you. It can be handy to have a list of what is already installed
on your computer, created by:
dpkg --get-selections "*" > Desktop/apps.txt
Then copy the file "apps.txt" onto your flash drive. That way you can see
whether you actually need any dependancy files. You have to be careful to
install the dependancy before the application.