Minimal Debian with IceWm window manager. Really light and easily fits on a 10Gb partition. To keep things simple and lean I don't even use a login manager, just do startx. I use a theme that more or less resembles XP classic, but thinking of trying a Vista / W7 look-alike next time I install - feel like I've seen enough of that classic look for now!
using PinguyOS on laptop is ok tried a lot of other distros, bit of a butterfly. aprt from lappie currently using an imac, sorry so far I like it
Went on a distro pilgrimage through Ubuntu -> Debian -> Mint -> Arch -> Gentoo. I've used Gentoo for around a year now. I can't go back...I love Gentoo too much. Debian and Mint are runners up.
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS (Precise Pangolin) 32bits in triple boot with windows 8.1 32bits and MsDOS stripted from W98. Windows bootloader is the master (with help of EasyBCD 2.2) on P4 playmashine. On main workstation and laptop W8.1+Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander all 64bits and old p4 laptop with 512mb ram running reasonable Lubuntu 12.04
Try Elementary OS Best Looking Linux out there..Though it consumes a lot of memory than any other Linux distros out there.
Ubuntu 12.04LTS. I use it in virtualbox (don't want to use the GRUB boot loader and certainly do NOT want to go thru what I did when I deleted ubuntus partition from within windows -.- and I've also heard a lot about wubi can corrupt windows on a hard reboot.)
That's balancing the costs of learning versus the costs of new hardware and free software. Thanks to Xubuntu I can still performantly use my 7 years old PC, and perhaps for another few years more.
Like most of us tried Ubuntu, Fedora, and all major distro but I was getting tired adding different depot for this or that. And most of all, I was tired reinstalling my distribution every six month because something screw it after the update. Then I discovered three years ago Archlinux a rolling release distro and I'm very happy with it now. Everything is available through official repository or AUR depots (the one managed by users). There is no versionning, you are always up to date and the WIKI is amazing. Give it a try.