Tired of Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch churn, I switched to Linux Mint for calmer updates, better defaults, and a desktop that ...
If you're looking for a distribution for an aging machine and you want to go with something other than a Ubuntu-based distribution, walk through the Arch with Omega.
If your Linux machine is taking its own sweet time booting, you have a built-in tool to help discover where the problem lies.