Up until 2 years ago I had little interest in computing. Then, unemployed and 58 years old, I took a few introductory courses. They were all MS Windows orientated, but they set me off on the right track. I soon learned, from the 'net and magazines, about the alternatives to Windows. Tried some of the what you might call the 'half-way houses': Cygwin, GnuWin32, and a Knoppix live cdrom. I originally had Windows ME, then went to XP, and in a moment of insanity, signed up for AOL broadband. At present, I'm dual-booting XP and Slackware.

welcome to the family brian

Thanks, nice to be here. I've already changed my distro. From Slackware (running before I could walk??) to Mandriva LE 2oo5. I've had them hanging about for a while. Got myself a Netgear router/modem so I'm coming at you all from Linux now, not Windoze as before.