tumblenweed in case you are not aware of this you can download and burn many of the linux distros/versions to cd as an iso, they are called live cd's. You can take the cd put it in your computer cd drawer and then reboot the pc so that it boots from the cd drive, then you simply select to run linix from the live cd. you can do pretty much anything you want to do from the live cd, just like if you had installed it on your hard drive but you didn't so everything that was on your pc is untouched. You will be able to use the firefox browser on the live cd to go online and surf, use the office program on the live cd to do word documents, use the audio or video programs to listen to music or play videos, every thing you normally do you can do in linux from the live cd. It is the perfect way to try out linux, you do not change a thing on your pc all you do is stick a cd in the drawer and boot up. When you are done using it select the shut down button on linux, when the cd drawer opens remove the cd, let the pc reboot and you are back as it was before you ever put the cd in the drawer. If you don't want to burn your own cd you can order them for just a few dollars from several sources online. I would get several so you can try out different distros, ubuntu is not the only one to try, I really like Mepis it is very easy for new users, you can get some that use KDE some that use Gnome and there are some that have like 4 different managers on them. you can take a look at some of the versions here. Linux at distrowatch, on that site you will see links to sites you can order cd's from. Get a few and give it a try! Plus everyone should have at least one linux live cd handy in case their windows dies, you can use a linux live cd to still get into your system and often use it to get your files.

I'd wonder how many toolbars and how many different security programs have been installed/removed over time. I just fixed a computer.. seemed like some of the same symptoms, slow type, slow web. Slow everything. I started with a general clean up my mind thinking virus... but clean as much as possible first to make scans faster... Removed tool bars, a couple of junk programs... it had two usb virus checker programs... when I removed the second one.. instantly noticed it woke up the connection. She had a usb wireless modem so I suspect.. that was it. Zero virus, 1mb connection, peppy little web computer with 512 ram, xpsp3. Removed some ungodly amount of temporary files.

Owbist, thanks for the suggestion of a new thread. The computer I am having problems with only has X-P. Due to a problem with my X-P machine, I have put the Ubuntu project on the back burner. Please allow me to tell you about my new problem. X-P SP3, 1024 MB memory. Due to a connection related problem I talked to the folks at ATT. They got me back on line but the computer is very slow, it has not crashed, but it takes forever for the pages to load. Sometimes I type faster than the computer can load the images of the type, and I am a very slow typer. When going from one web page to another is seems like forever. When I try to click back to the former page, also takes a long time. Also, the pages load small and I have to enlarge them, nothing seems to work like it should. I have run Malwarebytes, Ccleaner, Spyware Blaster and defragged the computer...nothing bad showed up. Steve

A long time ago, I did a Mint Mate install(actual install, not live) onto a 16GB Gigaware USB flash drive. It booted slow as molasses and the first time running apps was just as slow. It ran fine afterward though. I considered getting a faster flash drive such as a SanDisk Extreme, but it wasn't it my budget at that time. I seem to remember playing around with bcd.exe but my memory is short. Some day I'll have to give EasyBCD a try. In the meantime, GRUB works for me. An extraordinarily boring (and embarrassing, mostly because I flubbed customizing GRUB2 because I'm too lazy to learn to use it properly right now) video of my installing Mint Mate alongside Windows 10 in a virtual machine... I suppose the point is that they can, at least sometimes, live happily beside one another. I was really expecting Mint Mate to offer to "install alongside windows" and auto-partition but it did not. Don't some other Ubuntu based distros do that? Or is it just full blown Ubuntu? Anyway, after all my stumbling, doing it incorrectly, redoing etc., Grub now reads exactly the way I want, remembers the previous boot choices etc. ... That's just a virtual machine though. I wouldn't suggest others try it on their real machines. I suppose if one were to practice setting up a dual boot system, a virtual environment would be the safe place to learn, right? BTW, I used Oracle's VirtualBox in the above videos. Free and open source. Oops, I just read the warning on the VirtualBox download page: "Please be aware that Windows 10 is not yet officially supported!" Oh well, seems to run fine for me.