I’m typing this on my newly-repaired PC, in Windoze. Pretty quick huh?

I changed the motherboard, and the PC booted first time with all hardware connected [*pats self on back*]. Debian Linux booted first time, and detected the hardware OK- the kernel detects hardware as it starts and loads the modules for it as it starts. This is good because the boards are vastly different chipsets, but I’m using the same CPU and graphics adaptor.

Windows, as expected, threw a wobbler, rebooting halfway up, but a quick run of a repair has it booted and working, which, quite frankly is staggering given the usual song-and-dance. A few driver installs and it’s usable. Just got to patch it back to SP2, and it should be job done.

It’s a good example of why processor numbers aren’t as important as you might expect. The new board has faster memory and IDE controllers (so the disks run at their design speed now), and performance is much better, despite the same old Duron 1200 proccessor. YMMV of course: hardcore gamers will pretty much need the fastest of everything.

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After all that the fscking DVD writer was, as they say in Unix circles, fsck’d, refusing to recognise discs.
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