But that is used just as a doco machine, not used for connecting to the interwebs – pppoe and ubuntu and everyone smiles and says “get a router” which is really nice of them…

so as far as boot time goes you’re now calling hh hungry hippo?

I’ve done only updates for all the major releases of ubuntu since 5.10. Things have worked fine following the period of settling in that occurs after each update. A lot of the minor problems I’ve had with upgrades have been a result of running ubuntu on a Dell; many hours trawling forums and mailing lists have revealed other Dell owners experience the same issues I do.

If there’s a thesis involved, do nothing to risk the current setup. I’ve been there, learning the hard way about porting my thesis regularly between linux and windows systems….

I haven’t made the switch yet, my desktop has some very important stuff happening on it and this machine is always a PITA to install linux onto… so I’m gonna wait until I’ve handed my thesis in.