Yeah Linux should really be used only if you don't have the money for buying an OS. If you need more ram, get more ram.
Agreed with the last part. It's dirt cheap bro, you have no reason to not get more (if it's running slow) unless you're broke.
But this Linux hate has to end.
Ubuntu isn't for everyone. Let's put that out on the table right now. Linux
definitely isn't for everyone.
Ubuntu tries to make linux more appealing to those who wouldn't normally think about Linux as an alternative, and it does a damn good job of making it accessible. Now personally I prefer KDE distributions (Ubuntu uses Gnome Desktop Environment) but that's just me. I've used more programs that (and as cliche as this sounds)
just work right out of the installer on various distros. Kubuntu (Kubuntu uses K desktop environment), which rocked my socks off until I updated and got so many headaches. Although I hear it's pretty rare to update and
not get problems on Kubuntu (which sounds like a down right failure, and is). Sure enough they get bug fixes but I haven't checked because I accidentally wrote over that hard drive, lol.
Zombie, have you ever even touched a Linux machine for more than a week? Just sticking your dick (no offense) in here and summing
every single linux distribution as one single entity is wrong. They all (or mostly, there are a ton that seem to be so similar) appeal to different people. Fair enough to assume though, since not many people dig deep enough. Hell, I've only used three or four different ones in the past 10ish years.
And to be honest, all the problems and headaches that Linux will give the windows user - it has far more upsides - can be figured out in a good couple of months if you're going to actually use it as a semi-permanent OS. I'd suggest dual-booting, give 20-50GB or space to linux and if you really like it, well hell, go for it.
Linux is quite powerful and if you want to mess around with Wine, (which plays most windows games already, maybe not perfectly but you're not going to play a game perfectly on a laptop to begin with) it's constantly being updated (just don't use the default stable version if you want updates/bug fixes faster) and supported RPG Maker XP just fine IIRC.
Nto to be redundant, but if you're actually going to try out a Linux distribution you really can't cop-out after a month because of random program #300 didn't work.
Chillax and google around a bit.
Chances are someone else has ran into that same problem with the same program. Now I'd really suggest checking out
http://appdb.winehq.org/ as you can search for programs that have been tested on WINE.
I'm not telling you to throw down your worries (there are a lot of downsides, Windows definitely works better for windows programs and I personally use XP since that's just how I roll) and go running to Linux but a lot people try it out for a while and then hate on it because they couldn't (sorry, but it's true) use google or official forums for help. Don't expect to be able to play games Day One, because chances are (unless you're great with configuring wine) you're going to need to wait a week-month for some god reviews.
Oh and K3B is pretty much the greatest multimedia tool ever written. Shame you can't really use it on Windows.
And at the risk of sounding redundant one last time....
Sho nuff, it will never run Windows programs as well as windows will right out of the box but they're not written for Linux to begin with. if you choose to go with Linux you really can't complain about that since you should know this going into Linux.
You should really lay down the pros and cons. there are a lot on each end, so take the time to research, it's well worth it if it works out, for either OS since you at least now know what you want.
Not gonna go skinning dipping in a pool without dipping your foot in, now are ya?