[linux-audio-user] how much ram?

Hi I'm now 1 small step from getting a laptop for music applications (mainly live csound, but also some sequencer (muse?), some soft synths (csound/PD), some sample playback + maybe HD-recording. I'm looking at 2 machines a)P4 2.4Ghz, 256Mb RAM, 20Gb HD, 1400x1050 b)P4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 40Gb HD, 1024x768 Since I'm comming from AMD K6-300, 256Mb RAM, 8Gb HD, I cannot judge if a) is gonna be too small for my use? Every salesperson will tell you that you *have* to have 512Mb RAM, since they're assuming you're running WinXP, how true is this with linux. I don't see the smaller HD as a big problem, although the bigger the better... Any thoughts are appreciated. -- peace, love & harmony Atte