[sdtPikachu]

Long and short of it is, Win2k and XP will both run quite happily on 256 MB.

More importantly, and much less well publicised, is that short of buying a server board (and this is not what you want; server boards are great, but they're not optimised for stuff like games) is that adding RAM can actually slow down your system. This is cos the Northbridge was never designed to optimally handle that amount of RAM.

If you go over ~750 MB of RAM, your memory controller isn't going to be able to handle it properly and at best you'll see a minimal performance increase for a large financial outlay.

Alternatively, you could buy a server board... I did think of it for a while, but they were too expensive really. Mmm, Tyan Tiger dual processors... :slurp:

Linux really ain't that hard to get into just to fiddle about with... most of the desktop stuff you can do just with a point-and-drool interface, it's just the really really funky stuff that happens in the command line. Not to say I don't prefer a GNOME desktop to windows any day (ah, the configurability!), and imagine you'd be right at home with a KDE desktop (it's very similar to windows, which is one of the reasons I don't like it that much).

Some things can be a bitch however (playing DVD's is almost impossible for instance, since it's officially illegal to make a Linux DVD app), and there are times when it makes me kick and scream.

Then I just think of the smug smiling face of Bill, and plough onward...