Plus as time moves on, fewer and fewer software will support XP. Where as distros like Puppy will support all the latest browsers, have the latest security fixes and still have a lower hardware footprint (disk space, RAM, CPU, etc).

I also owned a first-generation netbook, and there XP was better than Puppy, Slax, etc...

The problem here is you're just quoting anecdotal evidence - which is pretty much worthless. There's nothing to say what the specs of the systems were, what your usage was, nor any post-install optimisations (eg since you're familiar with Windows I'd wager that you weren't running a vanilla install of XP - instead disabling themes and such like to streamline the OS. But you were probably still running a vanilla build of stripping XP down to it's minimal components while running a vanilla versions of those other Linux distros).

To further prove how useless anecdotal evidence is, I wiped my wife's old laptop and installed Xubuntu and saw some marked speed improvements - despite Xubuntu having desktop compositing and such like enabled (which wasn't enabled in Windows). I've also replaced two offices full of Windows CE thin clients with Linux - same hardware, but instead of WinCE (which is as minimal as Windows gets), it's running ArchLinux with LXDE.

So we can all quote the "upgrades" that we've done, but without offering any real details such stories are worthless (and the results would be mostly down to whichever OS your most familiar with anyway - as you'll know how to tweak it's performance). Which is why the majority of my point was about the age of XP (and the issues that gives in terms of security and support) vs running the latest version of Linux. At lest with that, we can evidence our arguments.

> "typically using user friendly but lightweight software (like XFCE)"

XFCE isn't actually that lightweight. I mean, it's often used as a lightweight alternative to KDE, GNOME and such like, but they're pretty beefy / bloated desktop environments. If you wanted something lightweight then you would have been better off with LXDE, E17 or any of the numerous window managers. But this goes back to my point about it being easier to for you to run a low footprint version of Windows because you're more familiar with that - and thus how worthless anecdotal evidence is because of that bias.

> "I also owned a first-generation netbook, and there XP was better than Puppy, Slax, etc..."

Well that's definitely not true because the 1st generation netbooks were ASUS EeePCs and they were all Linux (Xandros to be precise). XP wouldn't even run on the netbooks originally. Microsoft had to push through changes to XP's code and licences after the netbook market started to take off out of worry that Linux might grab a chunk of Windows's market. And I remember this vividly because not only does my wife have a 1st generation EeePC, but I remember the Linux fanboys proclaiming that netbooks marked the "year of the Linux desktop" (which sadly never happened due to Microsoft subsidising Windows so massively that Linux netbooks actually worked out more expensive in comparison).

I also agree XFCE isn't really lightweight - but it's included in a helluva lot of things that describe themselves as lightweight and target older machines.

Maybe we can say the netbook was second generation then. It was an Acer Aspire One. I think you could choose between a weird crippled Linux or a Windows install. Or maybe it was dual-boot? I installed a fresh copy to get rid of the crapware anyway.

It's a matter of context. XFCE is usually shipped as a lightweight yet highly configurable alternative to the feature-rich desktop environments (DE) such as KDE and GNOME. Which it is. But that's only relative to the resources that it's peers consume. However in the last 5 or 6 years LXDE has come on the scene - which is even even more stripped down than XFCE was and as LXDE has a strong focus on modularization, it's even easier to run a low-footprint LXDE desktop. But as it's a relatively recent DE, it's not been a distro default-choice until recently.

There's also E17 (enlightenment) which has been around for donkey's years yet oddly seems to draw very little attention despite it's impressive performance. Not sure why that is, but if I had to guess - it might be because it's aesthetics is a little more individual so switching between different toolkits in E17 can be a touch more jarring and harder to unify.

However if you want really low footprint, then you need to run purely window manager instead of a full desktop environment. But they're less intuitive, less pretty and just generally another class of UI.

So there's a reason why XFCE is (or was) the low footprint DE of choice.

> "Maybe we can say the netbook was second generation then. It was an Acer Aspire One. I think you could choose between a weird crippled Linux or a Windows install. Or maybe it was dual-boot? I installed a fresh copy to get rid of the crapware anyway."

You might have a 1st generation Acer netbook then. But Acer weren't the first to market with netbooks. I think they were a full year behind ASUS's EeePCs (and even further behind similar devices aimed at different markets - such as the OLPC).

I don't actually understand why wouldn't anyone use a minimal distro like Arch on any hardware. You would be surprised just how lightweight a full featured desktop environment like KDE can be on Arch/Gentoo.

I take your point about (I'm guessing) an 800MHz P3 with 256Mb. I'd use AntiX for something in that range as I am a bit lazy. But I could still get use from it.