Actually, the netbook can wait a while.

I think it's time to treat the long-suffering desktop to Mint 9.

At the moment I have Ubuntu and Mint 7 on this drive (160GB), with Windows 2000 on an 80GB drive. I never seem to use Ubuntu, which means that it's using up a lot of space on a small hard drive to no effect.

The grand plan is to delete all partitions on this drive, and install Mint 9. After some deliberation, I thought I'd keep it simple as always - root, home and swap. Omitting Ubuntu will leave some space to mess around with Virtual Box - a much easier way of trying distros and replacing them. Goodness knows whether the smart new GRUB will still allow W2000 to play.

Rather than try to salvage the shambles my partitions have become, I'm not even trying to preserve the old /home - so an old 80 GB hard drive has been pressed into use, shoved into an external enclosure and had all my data squeezed onto it. Hope it lasts long enough to transfer it all back...

Suppose I should check that the old warhorse can actually run Mint 9, but I'll be awfully surprised if it can't.

Wish me luck...