Ok, let's leave aside that Ubuntu is basically just Debian with much better "OMG usability" hype--the biggest difference is that Ubuntu doesn't have as many pac

Ok, let's leave aside that Ubuntu is basically just Debian with much better "OMG usability" hype--the biggest difference is that Ubuntu doesn't have as many packages available by default. With the increasing acceptance and widespread development/use of Linux, I have progressively seen it become more and more like Those Other OSes. Once upon a time, Linux was fast as hell on any hardware. It isn't these days. Now, we generally run a massive desktop environment (GNOME/KDE) on a massively bloated display system (X.org), so we can display disgustingly huge programs (Firefox/Chrome, OpenOffice, even Pidgin is a pig). I run Debian on my T22 laptop (PIII, 512 MB of RAM), with the 9wm window manager, and it is slow.