[LAU] Synths for live use

Does anyone have any suggestions? Ideally should be lightweight (capable of running on an old eeepc 701), lots of control possibilities (interact with controls via midi knobs), rock solid stable, possible to recall state from command line. Not all of these are essential but I would like it to start up and interact with my kb without too much typing on-stage! I do have a real soft spot for whysynth but the midi learn and recall of state seem tricky/impossible with ghostess? I would also like suggestions for organs (Beatrix?), electric pianos, romplers.. I am seriouslh considering a solid state keyboard or sound module, but it seems it should be possible with linux... Suggestions for reasonably priced hardware (2nd hand?) Options would also be interesting... J