It's a dual core Atom 1.33Ghz processor (2G ram). Bought it with Windows 7 illegally installed, but it always ran extremely slow anyway, so I wiped it and installed 14.04.
I expected it to be slow, but it's totally unusable. Like 80 seconds to open the unity search, then 10 seconds per letter when you type. Some things are almost usable, but others are impossibly slow. Also, browsers freeze up after about 5 minutes of use. So do most other programs.
I've disabled graphics, switched to GNOME, tried to install nvidia drivers, but nothing helps. Like, no difference at all.
Would an older version of Ubuntu run faster, or am I missing something fundamental? I ask because this page seems to indicate 12.04 is the preferred system, though maybe it's just an old page?