If you decide to implement apt-get (and probably fou4s would be similar), and let it do a major sweep to bring your system up-to-date -- perhaps on items that you have not been handling via YOU -- then be sure to disable your locking screensaver. If the screensaver kicks in while X stuff is being updated, you may find that it no longer responds to your password. If you have insufficient experience, then switching to a console may not be enough to get back into your ongoing (but still locked) X-session. That, in turn, may have undesireable results when you finally do start up again. I guess I don't need to tell you how I found that out. :-) Anyway, to make a long story longer, I started off in KDE before launching apt-get, and now I'm in WindowMaker, trying to figure out how to get it all back (KDE and the apps I've been using for the past year). I have tens of thousands of old [SLE] messages, all tucked away in KMail, but most K apps and GNOME apps won't run, so I've started using Sylpheed, which is getting my new mail, but which doesn't see my old mail directories. So, I'll be spending the next week or two searching the archives, rather than letting my e-mail program do an instant search for locally-stored messages about how to re-instate KDM or GDM. /kevin (and the adventure continues)