dear Rich
generally i have not complaint against my computer
this is an old but reliable compaq evo d500
pentium4 1.80ghz, 512 mb ram, 2 x hdd 250 gb
tc@box:~$ dmesg | grep ata
Memory: 506512k/524132k available (3222k kernel code, 17168k reserved, 1193k data, 448k init, 0k highmem)
.data : 0xc0425b1e - 0xc05502c0 (1193 kB)
libata version 3.00 loaded.
ata_piix 0000:00:1f.1: version 2.13
ata_piix 0000:00:1f.1: setting latency timer to 64
scsi0 : ata_piix
scsi1 : ata_piix
ata1: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0x2460 irq 14
ata2: PATA max UDMA/100 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0x2468 irq 15
usbcore: registered new interface driver ums-datafab
ata2.00: ATA-7: SAMSUNG SP2514N, VF100-33, max UDMA/100
ata2.00: 488397168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/100
ata1.00: ATA-7: ST3250820A, 3.AAD, max UDMA/100
ata1.00: 488397168 sectors, multi 16: LBA48
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
previously i used lxde but now i use jwm
mostly i use the following software
opera-11, seamonkey, firefox with flash11 and netsurf
pidgin and skype
gnome-mplayer, vlc, minitube with mplayer phonon backend
abiword and gnumeric
aria2, fatrat, transmission, mldonkey
sometimes i also use gimp2 and inkscape
agree that for these purposes my computer is suitable