Tux 1 - 0 Beastie
I suppose I should continue my public self-flagellation and report progress on the software installation front.
Linux is winning on the desktop at the moment but only after a graphics card swap and DVI/VGA cable swap. The hardware change would, most likely have solved my problems with whatever OS I had installed but the OS of the moment is PCLinuxOS 2007 (gnome version - KDE is too bloated and Windoze-like for my liking). 2008 is now available but repository updates to 2007 amount to the same thing, I'm told.
PCLinuxOS is based on Mandrake but is slimmer and faster and cleverer, in my experience. Having swapped graphics cards from ATI (curse them) to Nvidia (bless them), I had to uninstall all flgrx and ATI drivers to make sure there would be no confusion and conflicts. Then the dreaded reboot and expected xorg.conf manual command line tweaking to get going again. But, no my fellow geeks PClinuxOS, unpromted, stepped into the breach, recognised the problem and presented a very helpful utility to guide through the repair and installed all the necessary new drivers.
It just worked. I now have a shiny new PCLinuxOS (Gnome) desktop running Compiz beautifully with all its wibbly-wobbly, rotating cube, event effects bling bringing a flush of green to the gills of Apple Mac worshippers everywhere.
So I have a windoze box up and running a couple bits of hardware Linux and FreeBSD won't drive, a FreeBSD server and a PCLinuxOS main desktop. Just got to get them talking to each other now!
