if speed is a serious concern and you still want it easy try xubuntu. It shouldn't be with your hardware though.
http://www.xubuntu.org/
kubuntu is a good choice if you want it too look more like windows, and are not too worried about the load.
The difference between these variants and ubuntu is in the display manager xubuntu uses xfce, ubuntu uses gnome and kubuntu uses kde.
Xfce is much more lightweight, but it's more of a change from windows than the other two, and doesn't have as many features.
Gnome is a good compromise between speed and usability,
KDE has noticeably more features and it's also noticeably slower to load and it has a bigger memory footprint. On my system it uses about 3% of the memory,
but I do have 2 gigs.
Of course the display managers are in the repository for all the ubuntu variants, so you can just add the other two display managers to whatever version you
choose and then choose which of them to use at login, but I don't recomend it for first time users, because some of the default settings would have to be
tweaked for the best experience. But if you are comfortable doing that it is a good choice.
Of course all of the above assumes that you are not comfortable recompiling your own kernel and repartitioning drives from the command line. if you are and
have a week or so to spend on it, a gentoo stage 1 install will give you a system that is completely tweaked to your needs and hardware, but relativly few
people are comfortable doing that and have the time for it. I don't think the performance gain is worth the time spent on it but some people disagree.
here is a quick overview of the major distributions:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
Oh and ATI has less support for linux than nvidia and I find nvidia's support to be abysmal. but you will need to get the proprietary drivers to get good
performance form wine. the Ubuntu variants should have the proprietary drivers in the repositories but there is a hoop or two to jump through to get them. Or
at least it used to be that way I havn't used ubuntu in years, and I am switching between distros every so often but I'm thinking about going back to
ubuntu in a few months.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
