Sorry for taking so long to reply.

Quote Originally Posted by Cybermonkey View Post
Development should be cross-platform, Windows and Linux. At the moment just hobby/freeware stuff, usually 2D (with physics ).
Ok well if you only want to support Windows and Linux then you might be safe sticking with a Windows machine for your development platform. However should you ever want to support Mac OS X, then I would suggest making the Mac your main development platform. Simply put it's 1000 times easier to go from a Mac-based Lazarus project that accounts for Windows than it is to go from a Windows-based Lazarus project and then account for Mac. Bundling, resource paths, etc. I can't emphasize that enough.

Windows development is a heck of a lot easier than Mac, I can't speak towards Linux as I've only tinkered and played with it on the odd occation and out of the box Lazarus seems to play nicer on both of those OSes than Mac. That said, Lazarus 1.0 has just come out and it could be a whole different story.

How this relates to hardware... it doesn't. Other than the Mac factor of course.

To be honest, what hardware you get shouldn't matter too much for 2D other than getting a good decent graphics card that can do the level of shading you want to pursue should you get into 3D. If you ever want to go commercial, I'd consider a Mac simply to develop on to cover the booming Mac/iOS markets. (a Mac Mini if you don't want a heavy investment) You won't make any money (or enough to matter) from Linux.

Sorry I couldn't tell you buy X, Y or Z piece of hardware. I don't think you need that advice from me anyhow. Just balance out what is in your budget with how cutting edge it is and you'll have something that should last you long enough until you have to replace it down the road.