Cody Nelson
First, I use linux quite a bit as servers at home and work, but has yet to stick as my desktop. Every year I try to use Linux to replace windows, right now using synergy and dual monitors to help facility in transitioning, but right now, I can't even really use the systems because a light load (web surfing) sends the system into a crawl. Doing this at work, and at home.
There is definitely something wrong with your setup. Like others have said, the most likely offender is an indexer such as Beagle or a misbehaving Flash plugin (in the case of Firefox). I am still using a much older 2.4GHz single core Prescott system with 1Gb of RAM which is usually under heavy load (MythTV recording, Mythtranscode transcoding and a compilation going on), yet all my foreground apps are smooth as silk. I can browse the web with Firefox/edit with Emacs while listening to music (mpd) or watch a movie with mplayer with no skipping. Charles -- "Besides, I think [Slackware] sounds better than 'Microsoft,' don't you?" (By Patrick Volkerding)