[LAU] sound advice please

It's a little confusing what's happened to the mailing list... Anyway i hope someone can offer some sound advice. For years my music making has been curtailed and frustrated by the bad luck and dead ends linux audio has taken me to. Drawn to linux by the democratic ethic, and paranoia of a closed future, but not being a technical human I've been stumbling through various combinations of gear for the past few years...though this hiatus has made me a better guitarist and given me a clearer vision of what i want to achieve once I have a working setup... I've been through 3 soundcards and confusing advice from the ALSA soundcard matrix that originally said my old M-Audio Quattro was supported (it wasn't), a pcmcia card that was but with frustrating results and a firewire device that wasn't fully though it wasn't for months and months that I realised it was the stupid ricoh firewire chipset in my laptop that was to blame.... Anyway, finally i have enough cash to invest in a new laptop, and other gear if needed. I'd like some sound advice on what i need for a solid setup...obviously i'm not a true computer person and I'd like things to be as simple as possible... Stuff I have... a five year old laptop...(probably on it's way to a good home) a Presonus firebox a Zoom H4 about £500/$1000US What I'd like a solid working setup with no more hassle... 64 studio (I'll happily pay for support) or Transmission 3.0 (I'm not a purist) something portable, mobile, immune to x-runs and crashes something i can record/play/mash with many effects something portable and powerful either dual core 64 bit laptop or even a netbook if it would do the trick... (though it looks difficult to find firewire these days) i envision mainly using lots of live samples via midi, guitar, vocals, found sound, supercollider, sooperlooper, ardour and maybe some other generative apps...the linux audio universe is so rich but i want to keep things semi-simple Any advice appreciated Hamish