Yes but Linux will run on these same specs, while actually being usable (including for web browsing) and even snappy at times. In fact, you could even halve the amount of RAM and still be quite fine. (And 2000 is definitely pushing it. Mid-2000s seems more likely.)

I run Ubuntu on 2017 PC (8700K, 32GB RAM, admittedly, HDD), and it is nowhere near snappy. Boot takes over 2mins until apps actually start to show up, starting new Terminal instance takes over 3sec (if not over 5). Regular programs like VS Code or Firefox are about the same as on Windows.

Software are more bloated than 3 or 5 years ago. Performance with a HDD will suffer as everything has to be loaded to RAM before the CPU runs the code. Put a SSD in this machine and for most tasks your experience will be the same as with a brand new PC.

That would contradict a claim about 2005 machine being snappy with Linux. 2005 machine probably does not have an SSD.

The beast you mention is even more spec'd than my current main workstation, which has half the RAM, and the entire default install of Ubuntu fits in the cache after boot. The HDD is not to blame; there is something else wrong.

So when the Terminal is not running, how long does it take to start on your machine (e.g. to the first output from the shell is printed)?

The boot time (to the first app running) is likely due to Nvidia blob, but who knows?

It takes around 2-3 seconds on the first attempt, future launches are instantaneous (cache plus gnome leaves a gnome-terminal-server process floating around).

> Those are not 2005 specs, those were easily around in 2000.

It's harder to look up RAM numbers, but AMD launched a 1600MHz CPU (and a few others above 1GHz) in 2001.