I outgrew my machine (1.8GHZ, 1GB max ram), and needed an inexpensive upgrade. Picked up a No-OS computer at the local tiger direct for under $300 (4GB ram, intel dual core @ 2.2ghz, 250GB HD) and downloaded and burned the ubuntu ISO onto a disk.
Installation was downright easy, and my laser printer and all-in-one HP plugged right in and worked. And I was able to share them with the rest of the house after a little googling. It has a number of office-like tools built in (outlook clone, word clone, powerpoint clone) + firefox so it is ready to use out of the box. Most all the questions I had (i.e. how to get more than 3 gig ram recognized) have been covered and are a google away. Very slick and well supported, and having the power of unix at my fingertips is both liberating and enabling. It even had remote desktop client with it (rdesktop ) so I could put my old windows box in the closet and drive it remotely from unix whenever I "need" to use pokerstars
I suppose I will have to try wine at some point, but I'm very pleased with the experience thus far.
