Flash Replacing Spinning-Disk HDDs

[windhound]

Solid state drives are here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147021
albet a little pricey

I recently received an old Dell Inspiron 4000 laptop fer free, she has a 600mhz celeron (coppermine) and a measly 64mb ram. In decent condition overall, considering its a near 7 year old laptop (ish). LCD hinge actually holds the screen without flopping and such
-but- as you might guess from the opening line, the hdd is pathetic. sounds like a garbage disposal and is a huge bottleneck for the machine

I'd like to get the machine to a usable condition, and seem to have a couple different options
one is, ofcourse, to get a new cheap hdd for ~55
an alternative I'm kinda leaning twards is a flash drive made from somthin like
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134095
and
http://cgi.ebay.com/Compact-Flash-CF-to-44Pin-LAPTOP-IDE-Hard-Drive-Adaptor_W0QQitemZ230148834819QQihZ013QQcategoryZ41994QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
I know Flash has limited write cycles, and 4 gigs isnt a whole lot of wiggle room, but I'd be interested to see how well it works. its an older machine anyways, and its not going to be playing games, video editing, or any real hugely demanding tasks.
it will be running some form of linux, Fedora 7 is on it now and runs alright, except for the stalling studdering harddrive

either solution would cost roughly the same
any thoughts on this?