he's referring to Ubuntu's desktop, which, IIRC, is GNOME 3. You could have the latest CPU and 500 GB of RAM, and GNOME 3 will find a way to make it crawl. I always switch to XFCE now. But fvwm2 would also be quite an improvement.

Linux desktop in 1998 was super snappy. As long as you didn't expect much in the way of latest 3d graphics card drivers.