The latest Ubuntu is a disappointment... 9.10 Karmic Koala or whatever it is really sucks... I have upgraded it while still a RC and for the last week and something I realized it is good for nothing. Constant crashes, wireless problems and so on... reminds me of Windows times... So long, suckers! Back to my old love Zenwalk!
So after spending a few hours my Zenwalk rocks and everything works perfectly fine. I have had to install manually only the kernel module for the wireless (Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g). I've got the proprietary driver which gives me no problems. Wpa2, openvpn and everything else works perfect.
Even though the browser says Iceweasel 3.5.2, it is the new Firefox 3.5. Audacious also works quite smooth with just a few crashes. Right now Helloween plays Secret alibi 
I've even installed Chromium, thinking it is Google Chrome... It turned out to be a pretty cool game so I can't say I am disappointed
Chromium, Audacious, Iceweasel and stuff
The load keeps pretty low and everything is very fast:
root[terry]# uptime
21:04:25 up 35 min, 2 users, load average: 0.30, 0.29, 0.25
So if you have problems with the latest Ubuntu 9.10, just switch to Zenwalk. It is Slackware based with all the commercial software support and really lightweight.
Followup: The next day I installed Google Chrome for just a few minutes following these instructions on Installing Google Chrome on Slackware.