[carpartsho]

Yesterday my computer crashed. When i tried to boot it up it was unable to locate a few files needed and it would just stay on the scripting screen (like the Ubuntu version of DOS...is that called GNOME?)

Anyway, i got it reinstalled. Now i have a bad sector on my HD, but it seems to be stable and working well, if Firefox would just be more stable (keeps crashing). I did the first round of updates...is there another update that might be needed to make FF more stable? One thing i noticed is that now i no longer have Namaroka version of FF, but actually have FF. A few other things are strangely different (like my son can use the Facebook chat now, even though i hate Facebook and think it is the coming of the Beast).

My main question, however, is about the home folder. Can i just drop it on a flash drive rather than burn a "restore disk"? I just don't want to have to always go in and change the PITA things like the IPv6 setting in FF, or moving the buttons back to the left (because i hate Apple). Can I not just copy my "home" folder to a flash drive, and then copy it back the next time i install?

Also, my 10.04 or 10.04.1 version home folder....can i drop that into Hardy or Jaunty? Since we have some Hardy machines at work it would make y life easier.

BTW, those work machines....we found a "special" build of 9.04 that works on it. The video card is not as big an issue as RAM. With only 256 RAM those machines could not run anything other than the special version (and i cannot update or it crashes). But the machines are stable sans updates. I will likely put some memory in them to bring them to 512. I hope that makes them worthwhile to use (especially the one with the new HD, as it is meant to be like a local file and print server when i figure out how to set that up).

Which brings up my last question...can i set my home desktop up as a local file server, too? I would LOVE to be able to stream .avi files directly to my xbox from my desktop. I do it with my laptop, but it was XP with WMP media center edition, and it was made to link to your xbox. I am cool about not being able to do that. But if i could use it as a file server for other computers in my home wireless network it would make life much easier for me. Any input on that?

Yeah, lots of questions. But you know i love figureing this stuff out, and you guys are always so helpful (which allows me to pay it forward....i have installed Ubuntu on about 20 machines in the last year. it has caused my father in law to cease calling me to help him clean up viruses and stuff on his windoze machines, and he loves it)