Hi All, Thanks for the comments. The original email wasn't trolling for flames. I had good success with SuSE 8.2. SuSE 9.0 Pro had its problems, but 9.1 is a basket-case on my hardware. Thanks to the people who bothered to respond to each of the hardware interface problems will help me sort out what is what. Some asked what configuration of hardware I was referring to, well my own notebook is: - Compaq Presario 2830AP PIV 2GHx, 512Mb Ram, built-in ATI Radeon 7500 graphics card, 1600x1200 pixel screen (18months old) - Internal 8x CD-RW / DVD drive (that for some odd reason Linux only writes at 4x -- odd); - Sony USB 2 or Firewire DVD+/-R +/-RW drive (2 months old) - Sony USB 2 128Mb Micro Vault memory stick (6months old) Contacted SuSE support about the configuring SuSE 9.1 with samba and they said they only offer support to get the basic PC up and running stand-alone. That was a bit disappointing, but I press on. Thanks for all who offered helpful comment. Paul