Right - I've not actually been to Baltimore in some years now, and simply threw up the title upon realizing that you hungry freaks (Daddy) would be going for my jugular were I not to include (How-Ever inappropriate it may be) a hyper-link:  Zappa For Low Budget Orchestra.

So, that out of the way:  My new power supply arrived this evening, and - After a few more cups of Kenyan bean, glasses of Scotch, and illicit indulgences (Don't judge me - Don't judge me) - I'll be either up-grading or totally fucking (And, not in the good way) my system.  Once I've (Hope-Fully, at least) the hard-ware installed, my intent is to "up-grade" from Vista to an old copy of XP; How-Ever, Vista having driven me to the point where I don't even want to hear the slightest mention of micro-limp-dick these days, I was hoping to load the new drive as a dual-boot, and - With hope - eventually run a (At least reasonably) stable version of Linux full-time.

A brief look around the internets has all ready ruled out Red Hat due to cost ($80 per year for licensing on a damned OS - Are they fucking serious?).  Now, I realize full-well that I'm asking for quite a bit here; How-Ever, my preferences would be:

1)  If not straight-out "free-ware;" Preferably no more than $50 for a "one-shot" licensing fee.
2)  I've forgotten more about DOS than I ever knew at this point (Yeah, I know what I said - Don't try to pull that whole "Logic" shit on me); So, I'm needing an OS which is at least pseudo-adaptable for the simpleton which I've - Apparently - become over the years (Hey, it's been a hard life, Man - Better luck next go-around, eh?).
3)  I can not tolerate any more fucking hassles attempting to run my damned third party soft-ware (Getting Agent Forte to actually fucking work would be rather nice as well; But, I don't really want to "push my luck" here)!  I've quite a bit loaded; How-Ever, those to which I most frequently turn:  WinAmp (Which runs constantly {Obviously - You know me:  I'm "all about" the tunage}),  FreeRip, Skype, Paint.Net (Thanks for that little recommendation, Orangina), and WinRAR (If need be, I could down-grade to a "free-ware" extractor; How-Ever, I'd - Obviously - prefer not to).
4)  And, to really "push my luck:" I was thinking that it'd be rather nice were my hard-ware to run with-out too much of a hassle:  HP Desk-jet F380, Logitech Z-10 Speakers, Logitech USB head-set, Logitech Pro-9000 Web-Cam/Digital Camera, a Diamond Viper ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT PCIE 512MB GDDR3 video card, and Antec hard-drive cooling system.

My system is an HP m8100n running 64-bit AMD and dual-cores (Approximately 1.5 GB each).

Any and all responses welcome (If not subject to a rather sarcastic response).

"I'm living through the days at lightening speed.
I want to shout; But, I can hardly speak."