I installed Ubuntu Studio and KDen Live on my netbook just to see if they work well together. They do! KDen Live also loads pretty quick for that low powered machine. Anyway, that was just a test. Can anyone suggest the most affordable PC I can get that will handle HDV editing. I imagine it needs to be dual core and allow for up to 4 gigs of RAM right? Dell had an Inspiron that starts at $279 or so but when it's all said and done, it's more like $400:-( Is there a lower range costing PC that'll handle HDV? Say around the $250 area?

I do my development (mostly MLT, very little kdenlive) on a dual Athlon 2000 with 1GB RAM from 2001! However, it does struggle to smoothly play 1080i HDV. However, it was good enough to make that this video:
http://www.kdenlive.org/forum/my-memorial-weekend-holiday-video

I have also use kdenlive on my dual core MacBook Pro and can attest that it performs very well with HD. I am not suggesting to get an expensive Apple MacBook! But you should be able to find something very cheap with similar specs:
http://support.apple.com/kb/SP17

You do not need more than 1GB RAM generally with kdenlive unless you have a bunch of other memory-intensive apps open as well, of course.