When I first started this blog years ago I was detailing various (mostly failed) experiments with running linux on an old Time (Fic A430) laptop of mine. The machine is long past it's prime - screen doesn't work, no battery and was last in service as a windows 2000 mp3 jukebox at work until the harddrive failed. I decided to get a new bargain harddrive for it and have one last stab at milking some life out of it. I installed Ubuntu linux, which went on like a dream, recognising everything including onboard soundcard which always used to be a problem and the machine is now happily (and quietly) sitting at home as a general email/ web machine (plugged into external monitor, keyboard etc) and also functions as a backup server - taking nightly backups of a few remote mysql databases I have, and an ssh gateway to my home network. If this proves to be reliable, then I will feel much better about the stupid amount of money I spent on it seven years ago!