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.