[LAU] need help in san francisco

any body willing to help me out in san francisco? the project is to set up a recording and sequencing system for scratch (semi-pro-quality) recording. i'm an out of work musician but none-the-less willing to pay money. problems include: * determine the right computer to buy for example: buy a tower or a laptop or both? if a tower, what expansion cards to buy? * determine what software to use * determine i/o and other hardware * how to drive a roland X10, other roland digital keyboard? what other external hardware to buy? drum machine? other music instrument hardware? (i like having instrument voices in external hardware so's not to burden the CPU of the computer running recording or sequencing software.) * use existing pro-tools recordings on the new linux system hopefully, jim PS: music store people i've talked to have no clue about linux stuff. i have read reviews and other online info and cannot find what i need: specifics to put a small, basic system together (what CPU speed, RAM, storage... to buy; is there reasonably good quality recording or sound generation or audio playback stuff in expansion card form that works with linux; are there necessary drivers or libraries that are not obvious to someone new to setting up these systems; what are the solutions to problems that typically come with the specific hardware and software components...?).