So I downloaded the ISO, burnt it to one of my old CD-RWs and fired it up. The installation program is purely text mode rather than the flashy graphics that others use, but it's all very logical. I was able to select what I wanted to do with my existing partitions. I elected to keep my /home partition. After copying all the packages across the system rebooted and spent some time preparing them all for use. This part could do with a progress bar so you have some idea how long it will take. Eventually I got a graphical log-in screen. The system starts up with some pretty grahics and various noises. Personally I prefer my PC to only make noises when it's really necessary. It uses Gnome as it's front end rather than KDE, which I'm more used to, but there is an option to install that.
The initial menus are fairly sparse with a single option for each type of application, unlike Knoppix which overwhelmed you with choices. I only had time for a brief play so I ran Firefox. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it had retained all my bookmarks, cookies and even the extensions I had previously installed. Now I just need to install the various other applications I need.
So far, so good.
In other news, we decided to try a little bit of tennis with the kids in Bedford Park on Saturday. This was going well until I overstretched myself trying to return a shot and went crashing to the tarmac. I grazed several placed on my right arm and my hip. The shoulder is very sore, making just about any use of it painful. That will teach me not to show off
