Writing this is XP though have spent a bit of time in SimplyMepis. Time with Linux seems to be time spent fixing things. Had a powerdown problem- box wouldn't shutdown sorted this by removing acpi=off from the grub menu. The virtual terminals wouldn't appear when using ctrl alt and F1-6 I managed to sort it by trial and error. Got thanked by someone for the fix even though I was unsure exactly what I had done. A minor milestone on the linux path.

Then the screensavers vanished - this was some kind of recognised bug and there was a file to download fix that worked fine.

Synaptic and apt-get (they enable really easy -easier than windows-installation of programs) were big selling points of Ubuntu and other distros but somethings seriously up. Now it keeps directing itself to a brick wall. There are workarounds - use ping for the repository address than try apt-get. ping seems to clear a path. I really want to get this fixed- there are partial workarounds but I want synaptic and apt-get back to their former glory. Installing the latest distros should produce a step forward not a step back with utilities IMHO.

Well I didn't make seven days without linux. I was helping the gf with something when I noticed that the dual boot grub menu had completely disappeared and I had no choice but to boot into XP anyway. Enter Knoppix Live CD hopefully to save the day. I followed a load of tutuorials/threads trying to get grub up and working but to no avail si forced to copy key data and reinstall.

This was my first linux install using a 6.06 Dapper coverdisc from Linux Format magazine. My big fear was accidentally installing on the Win drive which wasn't fully backed up - there wasn't much chance of this having spent twenty hours at the monitor trying to fix grub I knew the nomenclature of all my drives and partitions off by heart.

The ubuntu install went well. It was then that I realised I hadn't backed-up my various bookmarks and so on. As for the multimedia issues/codecs etc I wasn't sure what you were supposed to do with them anyway- do you just copy them over to a new install and they start working.

There was problems using synaptic so I went for a different distro installing SimplyMepis. First time everything came out too big so I reinstalled (my third install in three four days?)and it looked good. A similar issue with synaptic though - to get it to work I have to ping one of the repos addresses then do apt-get update this renews the list of apps. I had wmv files working on the first mepis install really quickly but still can't get them to work with 2nd install.

Flash works out of the box so I can watch youtube but I don't know what the situation is re Realplayer the only way to watch BBC that I found with ubuntu. (It took me ages before I got realplayer to work and it was great when it finally worked- all that has disappeared thanks to me reinstalling.)

SimplyMepis has an ok look- firefox windows look neat in it but somethings are slow- or at the very least have inconsisent speeds. Get annoyed whatching the icon bounce when konqueror is loading - a fast file manager is pretty important for jumping around for the bits for my main blog. Why is it so slow? Someone talks of increasing your swap partition but mine is just short of 1Gb so surely its not to small. Saying increase your swap and then actually doing it are two different things.

and it looked good. a similar issue with synaptic - to get it to work i have to ping one of the ar