For the last few weeks, everytime I bootup Ubuntu 9.10, I have to wait 2-3
minutes as "Filesystem checks are in progress:" on my Laptop's 160GB HD.

I'm new to Linux, use/help others with Windows since v3.0, dual-booted with 8.04
and 8.10 for a year, then completely removed Vista and installed 9.04 when it
came out. I loved it, very fast and stable, and then I did an upgrade to 9.10
via the "Upgrade Manager". I'll never do that again. I had many, many small
problems, including that fact that previously when I did a check for upgrades it
used to be "Downloading Package info 1 of 102", it's now "1 of 47". Half my
software links were broken/removed. My sound is always muted when rebooting,
Internet keeping dropping every few minutes, and other "100-papercuts" of
problems.

So I reformated and reinstalled 9.10 from the ISO burned to a CD. I've already
previously partitioned my /home separately. I still have the 100-tiny problems,
except now I have to wait for the "Filesystem checks". Searching the web I see
that it might have something to do with fstab, so here's what I have:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=6f5259cf-946f-4a5e-9428-d2b1ee620de4 / ext2
errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /boot was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=f4c741aa-123f-45a0-9141-87af3edf21c6 /boot ext2 defaults
0 2
# /tmp was on /dev/sda8 during installation
UUID=758db689-84be-4da6-ae7a-97ff867f5cf5 /tmp ext3 defaults
0 2
# /usr was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=351a9441-6dfa-4a79-ae22-543fbfbe83f1 /usr ext2 defaults
0 2
# /var was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=81c5b9a7-b877-4957-93f7-877b96631c62 /var ext3 defaults
0 2
# swap was on /dev/sda9 during installation
UUID=14c9ff0b-267c-4cfa-a15f-669be2eb603e none swap sw
0 0
#
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
#
# /home is on /dev/sda3 from old setup
UUID=3f0f6306-c950-4fa9-a47c-9ac5a0aeb745 /home ext3
relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1

Am I looking in the right direction to my problem? Should I set the last column
to all zeros (0)?

Or should I just return to the Stable, reliable v9.04, and wait and hope that
version 10.4 is a better product.

I do NOT want to return to Windows, I want to learn how to use Linux/Ubuntu, and
unlearn Windows way of doing things. I'm comfortable with the command line when
it's necessary. I've been reading a few Ubuntu books, searched the Internet, but
I don't see anyone mentioning my problem.