More hardware....

Even prior to buying the Acers, we had embarked on the next step in growing our ever expanding home network. In this case, it was a HP G7035ea M540 1GB 15.4" Laptop, from Tesco Direct, costing £329, running Vista, and described by the ever helpful Amazon thusly:
# Product Description: HP G7035EA - C 540 1.86 GHz - 15.4" TFT
# Recommended Use: Home use
# Dimensions (WxDxH): 35.7 cm x 25.7 cm x 4 cm
# Weight: 3.1 kg
# System Type: Notebook
# Built-in Devices: Stereo speakers, wireless LAN aerial
# Processor: Intel Celeron 540 / 1.86 GHz
# Cache Memory: 1 MB - L2 Cache
# RAM: 1 GB (installed) / 2 GB (max) - DDR2 SDRAM ( 1 x 1 GB )
# Hard Drive: 120 GB - Serial ATA-150 - 5400 rpm
# Optical Storage: DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM
# Display: 15.4" TFT 1280 x 800 ( WXGA ) - BrightView
# Graphics Controller: Intel GMA X3100 Dynamic Video Memory Technology 4.0
# Memory Allocation Technology: Dynamic Video Memory Technology 4.0
# Telecom: Fax / modem - 56 Kbps
# Networking: Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
# Notebook Camera: Integrated
# Input Device: Keyboard, touchpad, QuickPlay
# Battery: Lithium Ion
# Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic

It looks like this:

This machine was intended for use at school. It's the only one (so far) we've had to have repairs on - relating to the touchpad.

I very quickly made it into dual boot and installed Ubuntu. For more experimentation, I tried this approach of making it look like Mac OS. Bit of a waste of time really - won't be doing that again!

Wireless on Ubuntu was incredibly unresponsive until 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) came along. There have subsequently been no wireless issues.

Vista is horrible though, slow, bloated, unresponsive. Very nasty!