[closed] The advantages and disadvantages of Ubuntu?

It is best to dualboot if you have the hard drive space.

Ubuntu has become more resource intensive lately and a fresh install of windows xp is much more responsive especially when it comes to multitasking than ubuntu (ubuntu just uses too much memory for a older windows XP based system)

Though ubutnu is less likely to slow down as much over time as it has fewer programs which clutter the startup. So in that case it may be better if you have a user who quickly ruins windows installs (eg the user who after a few months, their PC takes 5 minutes to boot and has like 100 running processes and no free memory, and probably a ton to toolbars and malware)

Ubuntu has become fat so don't expect a low set of RAM to run it that well these days, but there are light official derivatives of ubuntu that cater for dustbin fodder computers.

Fat is relative. Fat compared to Windows 7? How does 3 seconds (past bios) sound on a mechanical hard drive?

With Ubuntu unity it's a lot more about the graphics card to get the thing smooth as silk.

Anything over 2GHZ single core / dual core should be ok to run it and by installing it inside windows using Wubi you can get rid of it like a windows app so no need to mess with partitions or nothing.

But lets face it. A dustbin fodder computer would be better of using something Like puppy Linux from a flash drive and still no need to mess with XP partition by booting from the flash drive. My old laptop boots puppy in around 8 seconds inc bios. 128mb iso drops mostly into RAM @ boot with near instant app statup. But I've got a home server that stores most of my data, but you can use that old internel hard drive to hold all the data run apps from the the puppy flash drive.

But there are many, oh so many options.

Welcome to Linux joltyboy

If it is Pentium 4 or older processor then, it is better to install ubuntu 10.04 LTS or Lubuntu or Xubuntu. UBUNTU is designed to use latest hardware technologies. There are many flavors of ubuntu or Linux in general for your needs.