[Cialug] dev box / file server died. What now?

[Kendall Bailey]

I have a mid-tower box ( Athlon 3000+, 2GB RAM ) that I ran
continuously so that it acted as a network file server ( 80GB drive ).
 It died.  I think the fan may have failed and/or the heat sink came
off the CPU.  I don't know which happened first.  I don't think the
power supply is bad.  Anyway, I'm not that handy at repairs and don't
want to spend a lot of time/money buying/swapping components.

I put the drive into an old 128MB/450MHz box, and it mounted OK.
Important files were already backed up daily, but seems like
everything is still there OK.  The drive feels hot when running (too
hot to touch for very long), does that sound abnormal?

I'm looking for advice.  I think I'd like to split the functions ( dev
work vs. file server ).  Is an NSLU2 or similar a good idea for file
server?  Low power and quiet would be nice.  Are they fast enough?
The 80 GB drive has my ext3 /home as partition #4.  Is an NSLU2 going
to see that (and other ext3 partitions) and make them available
without reformatting?  This is an older EIDE drive.  I assume I'll
need a USB enclosure for it.  Or does that not make sense for ext3
formatted drive?  Is NSLU2/USB 2.0 fast enough when serving files over
100Mbs LAN? or is it a bottleneck?

For the dev work, a laptop would be nice.  I usually just leave my dev
box headless and use X or VNC.  I have old "thin clients" around the
house.  A laptop could still support that but also be
portable/standalone.  The dev work would need at least 2GB and a
decent CPU.  On a budget, where should I look first... used?  whitebox
laptop supplier?  Dell? I don't want/need any Windows installed...

Finally, is anyone interested in the dead box for parts?  I can give
details if so.

Thanks in advance for all the Linux wisdom!
Kendall