I wouldn't recommend any of those Ubuntu forks, your essentially running applications designed for Gnome/Unity but are using a different window manager and patches to make it all work.
Install the original Ubuntu (12.04 for LTS), uninstall unity shit and install the old gnome, and you are set, it's not as lightweight as lubuntu but it is still orders of magnitudes lighter than any non-linux OS, especially when you clean out the unity crap.
Overall, Ubuntu was the best OS by far, until they brang in that unity crap.
Forks are important sometimes to get a well prepared Desktop UI that doesn't anger you or require a lot of time to setup DIY. Rather than use Old Gnome (meaning version 2) i can highly recommend the Mate project as it's still under active development unlike Gnome2. I totally agree though that Gnome3 and Unity suck balls.
To the OP: Dude you're doing it wrong. I've been using Linux for many years and have migrated half my family over to it happily. Guidance I can give from my experience to keep it easy:
1. Use hardware which is Linux friendly (avoid proprietary driver pigs), and invest a few small dollars to at least buy a computer that was built in the last 2-4 years. While you can get Linux working on virtually all ancient hardware that has ever existed, it's often not easy for noobs. Also, llightweight distributions like Lubuntu are often lacking in both ease of use and mainstream support. So if you want it easy, use somewhat fresh hardware and pick a major distribution. Ubuntu or it's step-child Mint (Fedora is worth a mention) are probably the top choice for trouble free day to day use as they have graphical software for essentially all functions you could ever wish for, thus avoiding the command terminal if it's not your thang. They're also very active communities which is a huge benefit.
2. Pick your desktop. Unlike MS and Apple's UI tyrany, Linux has choices for how your desktop works. Your choice doesn't matter much as long as you go check out the different desktop environments that are available and pick one you like the look and feel of. For example: Mate desktop is my thing. All the newest major distributions piss me off because they make you re-learn simple things in inferior ways. Indeed, most of the narcissistic UI designers out there working on the "major" GUI's (I include MS and Apple in this camp) seem to be openly hostile towards end users. Like we shouldn't worry our tiny little pea sized brains about anything but facebook and twitter updates.
But then if all you do is email, facebook and twitter, then these dumbed down GUI's might be just your thing - who am I to say? Go watch youtube videos or check out web pages to see what's available and pick one you dig. The main ones are (in my personal order of preference): Mate, XFCE, KDE, Cinnamon, Unity, Gnome3.
3. For laptops: Update the BIOS. I have often been horrified over the years at the shockingly bad quality of bios software when a new laptop first hits the streets. The MFG's fix all their mistakes after people have purchased the hardware, and old BIOS will lead to strange bugs with almost any OS. In fact you should do this BEFORE installing any OS to ensure that everything is discovered and configured correctly. I've seen this fix several laptops with power management issues, and hardware feature support. It's not always the fault of the OS if hardware acts strange or suspend isn't reliable - it's often bugs in BIOS that lead to unstable OS hardware interfaces. And this advice also works for Windows machines!! Seen it many times so word to the wise.
If one follows the above, they should have smooth sailing.
That's why I recommend MEPIS for newbies. It "just works" even with oddball hardware, and uses KDE instead of GNOME as its window manager, which is much easier to use (especially if you're coming from a Windows environment).
