A Question for the guru's out there - how fast is the Ubuntu Linux at installing itself, and then running applications ?

OK, I know it is dependent upon the hardware being used, but is it slow when used with an 'old' cpu ?

I am running Ubuntu v5p1(Breezy) on an IBM laptop - the cpu is a Pentium 2/233MHz - what sort of speed of operation should I expect ?

I mean, come on, over 3 hours for a default install (Yes, it loaded the whole CD, and all language packages, taking about 2.4GBytes of space on my hard drive). Over 4 minutes to start up and reach the login prompt when starting. About a minute to go from selecting Open Office / Write{mouse-click), to getting a page to write on ? Are these times excessive, or quite normal given my hardware constraints ?

Other hardware includes a Trident 9327 graphics card, with DVD option giving me 4 meg of ram(!) which I run at 1024 x 768/16 bit colour. Hard drive is 6 GByte. I am still fighting the soundcard (CS423x Crystal Sound, not found, even with lspci command). Network connection is via PCMCIA plug in card (I have not got one yet), and it has a 'wavemodem' for dial up ... whatever that is.

So, back to the nitty gritty - the system sounds like it is unzipping all files as it starts up (or runs an application), then running these files afterwards - lots of disk activity - which may be why it is so slow ... Again, is this normal ?

Any suggestions to put a bit of life in this setup would be appreciated.

Similarly, How do I 'lose' unwanted apps - like the many language packs I will never use ?