I think I answered my own question... part of it at least. Seems like a Radeon 9600 with Windows 7 is questionable at best.
With regards to my current Linux system...... it is not as if the OS does not support it. The OS itself seems to... the errors are with Firefox. When I got to "troubleshooting information" it says:
Adapted description: GLXtest process failed (exited with status 1): GLX version older than the required 1.3
WebGl Renderer: Blocked for your graphics card because of unresolved driver issues.
GPUaccelerated windows:0. Blocked for your graphics driver version. Try updating your graphics driver to version <Anything with EXT_texture_from_pixmap support> or newer.
OK so.....could this be fixed with a driver update? Or with an upgrade to a more recent Linux version? Or would I be faced with the same problems?
Is the MB and CPU too old for a better video card? Where would I go from Radeon 9600? I have **no** experience with Nvidia at all.
If switched to XP would I be faced with the same problems.... that is, unable to run a modern enough browser?
By the way I am not getting "browser not supported" errors with youtube 🙁