From a subjective standpoint:
Windows 7, in my experience, is, quite frankly,  crap.  This is simply because, as you've discovered, it lags like hell and things just slow down to a crawl.

I can't speak for Mac OSX devices, but I'd personally say give windows 8 a try.  (As a side note, I'm fully aware you're considering alternatives to windows, but I thought I'd throw it out there.)

I must admit I do rather like Windows 8, as it's responsive, runs probably all the things you'll need as you stated above and if it crashes, it's not a regular thing.

Hi.
I agree with the previous poster.
I have been an xp user and progressively I have updated to windows7 on all systems.
1 of these is a 64 bit system the others are 64 but I run 32 bit oses.
It all depends what you have loading, I have only my screenreader and security software 2 programs and that's it.
I never keep Skype and other stuff running unless I need them so its not that bad.
On the other systems an old i3 and a new quad i5 the systems run well though the i3 may be getting close to its cpu limit with all the extras needed by that system.
I run windows pro and that's all you really need, I don't know why any home user needs ultimate I have never needed it.
Ofcause with windows 10 since its free for the first year I may get whatever the max adition is as long as they fix all the issues.
As for 8.1 and so on, I used it once on a new system and even after slimming its configuration, and spending half the night clearing the junk off of it, I found windows8.1 quite complex and hard to use.
I also found it slow and laggy though it could have been the configuration and such to who knows.
A lot of systems have stuff they don't need.
Like an advanced virus checker like Norton.

All your extra software will slow things down.
I have simple average security software msse right now maybe I will go for nod32 or maybe f secure or viper f secure is really cheap and doesn't have fishing protection which is fine I guess point is you really should use what you need.
I have 4gb of ram and run a few old 16 bit apps so 32 bit is for me.
Most blindness related stuff like games run on windows, for the blind its better all round if we stay with windows.
Macs have their own issues Linux is another and free option sonar is now arch based and its what I use on and off.
Now if your system or at least 1 of your systems your school one for example never touches the net there is another option for you.
Install windows xp, its stable and will do what you want.
its not supported anymore but if you can get one coppy of it its quite stable.
If it was still supported I'd still be using it over windows7 even.
I am holding out for windows 10
But if that doesn't happen, my system can go to 8  for no additional cost and that's what I may end up doing.
One thing I will do I must admit is have a local account and have another account for online mode as I call it.
I had a friend that after her system did funny things took the box back to a computer shop and they told her she had a virus or maybe she may have pushed a wrong key.
After making her buy an upgraded supposedly better scanner, it transpired that all it was  was that she had touched the wrong thing.
her net then went down and her accounts didn't sync she had to reformat, back up her files and may have had to replace her microshit account or resync it I am not sure.
While the cloud is good for backup there is no fucking way I will be relying it as my primary no way in hell.
I have used windows7 for the last 3 years and I have had no troubles at all.

Well, I'm running windows 7 ultimate 32 bit with jaws 16, and it is works fine for me. but about internet explorer, yeah I agree sometimes it's got lag...

Hi.
trent I don't fully agree with you.
Afrim why go to 32 if you are on 64, 64 is ok, its ok if you have it and are used to it, most of my software is 32 bit and I had 4gb of ram.
Any windows above 8 will be optimised mainly for tablets so it will run faster on lower spec systems.
If your system is running slowly, you may want to restart it once in a while a lot of my family and clients I deal with put their system to sleep, and expect it to run nicely afterwards.
Yes its ok but leaving it like that all night may not be the best thing or for several weeks, it puts stress on the power supply for one thing.
and because windows does not clear its resource cache well you really need to restart.
Checking what you have loaded is another thing.
Trent the same issues about the ms account are the same I have about the cromebook or any system that needs to be online all the time.
The net as we know is a fickle bastard, its never stable even when it is.
It can go down at any time and if you have everything online, its fine as long as you can get online to access it.
If you are ever away from the net well.
Its why while I may have an ms account to access ms related stores and the like I won't be using one full time it will be something I log into once in a while.
A local account means you can access your stuff anywhere you want and if you have to take the system away from the net you can at least use the thing.
People rely on the cloud to much and while I don't mind and such bar all the security etc, the fact is putting your eggs in one collective basket is not the best.
Its one reason I havn't jumped on the ms account bandwagon, now they have turned off msn and it does not even work now on Miranda I suppose I will have to use Skype which lets face it is not the best for chats these days.
Luckily I don't need access to either app that much but I am still not happy with everything being needed to be online at all times.
Sure I'll take the cloud but my private info being put on it, no way, I don't want to login and use it just to use the system.
I want to have control of it.
in windows7, I can tell all cloud services to come on and off when I want.
and in win 10 or whatever Iget next I want the same flexability and control.
I don't use onedrive but I do use dropbox and google and I can control those.
As for messenger etc as long as I stay with desktop apps I should be ok.
I really hope that ms fixes the issues in 10 else I will get the free cds and licences but I won't install them till they fix the issues.
Theretically I could skip 10 all together, windows7 goes out of support in 5 more years.
And even then I don't know I may still continue with it I am not sure.
While I want to improve what things do and get the best of the best I don't want to do so to my detriment.
In fact if xp still existed I'd still be using it because I don't need much more than I am using now.
As for the Linux side, if we were in india or china I'd agree with you, problem is the entire world is Microsoft based and all apps are Microsoft based if you use a pc computer.
So windows will have to be used on a vm or something.
And unless you have 4 cores and 8gb or 16 gb ram and maybe vertualisation vms just don't run on host windows oses that well I have tried different ones.
Afrim, I suggest you either get more memory or look at refurbished or offleased laptops just about every computer store etc will have em older business systems, etc.
They will not be the best, but a core2 i5 will do what you want with 4gb ram mine is 3 years old it just runs what I want.
You will have to be barstardiously ruthless in what you load and what you run at startup and how many programs you run at once but as long as you watch yourself and don't leave unnecessary programs running its good though you may receive a minute or 2 lag with  program startup, if all you do is the net, brousing, email, Skype and wordprocessing gaming and music it should be ok.
Entry level Toshiba business small server units  should be ok, but the lower consumer entertainers may not be the best quality wise.
the real business units have slightly lower spec than others.
Next you need to decide on either storage or performance.
a ssd is good for that but you can't take that much with you without flash or external hard drive.
I chose the hard drive, slower but I can carry stuff when I travel.

Get a better hard drive too. The hard drives that manufacturers put in their laptops are real dogs usually. They are 5400 RPM drives for the most part, though I've saw some older ultra portables with 4200 RPM drives. Combine a slow hard drive with a small pool of ram and your not going to end up with good performance at all. Windows will regularly run out of ram and will have to swap the overflow onto virtual memory which is a portion of your hard drive set aside for storing the extra stuff that can't be put in ram right at that moment. When that virtual memory is on a slow hard drive, the hole system is going to bog down reading and writing stuff to that slow drive. windows 8 will help you too as it runs on tablets with 2 GB of ram no problem.