Best Of

I thank everyone for their information. I have gotten the Xubuntu OS and installed in my laptop that my mom has given me, and it is running perfect so far. It feels good to have my own computer/laptop that i can use. The installation went perfect and great, and like i said, I'm enjoying the new computer OS, and it's running pretty fast and smoothly

Late to the party, +1 for every suggestion regarding wipe/reinstall. Spend a little money getting yourself a win 7 license. Alternatively, if you have a friend in college, they might have access to a couple win7 licenses per year through the MSDNAA (might have to go to their university's IT dept if they don't already know how to get it). This is how @Ryanfodder and I managed to keep in business (haven't paid for a Win7 license yet, and I've still got legally acquired legitimate copies)!

So much more +1 for just canning windows and going to Xubuntu instead. Make sure that you look through which programs you want to use so you have alternatives lined up if something isn't compiled for linux - you don't want to be the kid going 'omg call of booty XXL doesn't run on linux?' Otherwise, it's pretty much magic - I'm a PC gamer and I grew up on windows operating systems, and one day I was irritated enough with win7 that I took the plunge and completely wiped my gaming laptop in favor of Ubuntu (related, not same as Xubuntu) - I said to myself, "if something doesn't work, I'll just figure it out." Thus far, I have absolutely been able to run everything I care to - granted, sometimes with a little configuring, but I generally find a way to get the job done.

I would note that if you've lived in a windows environment your entire life, it's worth spending a little time finding some of the differences. They're not hard or scary, but they're there. One big one is the package manager - on Windows, you install a new program from CD, or by downloading it from the web. You can do this on Linux OSes as well, but you're often better off using a package manager - the big bad precursor to the app store. Whichever OS you select should have some information about your package management system somewhere in its wiki or tutorial or whatever is used to help new users out.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-secrets-every-windows-user-know-linux/ - this is a bite-size list of some of the differences you'll face. They're not bad.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/ultimate-linux-guide-for-windows-users.html - this is a much larger, somewhat more technical guide to linux for windows folks. There's more information than you need to simply run the machine, so I would caution you to not read it and get overwhelmed - instead, use it as a reference, or some light reading before bed or on the subway. It talks a little about using the terminal (helpful as it is, you may not need to use it very often if you don't wanna), it talks about the general file structure of a linux OS (useful if you're the kind of guy that likes to dig through files), common software, and links to lots of other niche guides.

@Twi5tidDragon said:
Is Xubuntu pretty much a different OS that would pretty much replace the XP OS that is currently on that laptop? and do i just.... download it and then burn it to a disc, then run it in the laptop?

You would download it, burn it to a disc, boot from the disc, and use the automated installer with whatever option it uses for the "clean" install. It will format your hard drive and install the Xubuntu (or whichever you got) distribution of the Linux operating system.

Without getting too much into semantics, Linux is technically the name of the kernel, the core part of the operating system which provides the interaction between hardware and software. For comparison's sake, there have been like 3 different Microsoft kernels ever (DOS, 9x, and NT) and each different version of Windows is just a permutation of difference user experience elements running on top of some version of one of these kernels. Since about 2000, all Windows OSes have used progressively newer versions of the NT kernel. Similarly for Linux, lots of different distributions are available which combine different elements of user experience but all share the same low-level functionality.

Stop reading now if you don't care about the Linux and free software ecosystem.

Xubuntu packages the lightweight XFCE desktop environment with Canonical Corp's favored software load and Linux kernel. Ubuntu packages the heavyweight Unity desktop environment with the same, and Kubuntu packages the alternative K desktop environment with the same. Ubuntu is generally derived from the Debian distribution and if you don't care for Canonical's take on the OS you can always run Debian. Most people don't like Debian because they're strict about what kinds of open source licenses they allow for software in their mainline package catalog. This can be worked around if you like to use software with not totally pure open source licenses (like Firefox) or commercial licenses like Steam. Canonical's Ubuntu is much more lax about these kinds of licenses. Another popular Debian derivative is Mint, which packages the heavy-duty Cinnamon desktop environment but in my experience isn't as zany as the Canonical distributions which patch Canonical services into other software to "provide a consistent user experience".

I personally use Gentoo at home. Gentoo is not a user-friendly operating system, it trades convenience for versatility. It can be made to do anything extremely well if you have the patience to learn how it works. Arch Linux is in a similar vein but distributes software in binary form which can be run as a program just like you downloaded it off the Internet. Gentoo distributes software in source code form which it then compiles into software based on configuration parameters you set which govern how your system interfaces should be defined. There are a few derivatives of each of these which simplify use for things like desktop and embedded systems (Sabayon and Ratgen respectively). If you don't know what an embedded system is then you don't have one.