Not a terrible idea... At all, trust me
I gpt rid of XP and installed Linux Lite on an old HP 500 notebook I had (Celeron M @ 1.7 GHz and 512 MB of RAM originally, until I replaced it with a 2 gigs stick from my other laptop) and had no regrets.
If you want an official Ubuntu flavor Lubuntu would be the most ideal.
Never heard about WAMP(s) so if you can tell me what they are that would be cool, lol (guessing the MP stands for media player? But then why would you be worried about security?Nevermind, haha..
Pretty sure backtrack is mostly used for network stuff though?
Sent from my quantum supercomputer