Maybe one of the update servers is hosed in terms of a kernel update. Reason I mention this is this. And yes, I'm back, giving it another go-around in spite of the problems that plagued me last time. I decided to pull some hardware, mess around with my bios. change some cables. Call me a glutton for punishment I guess. Anyway, I just did an install a few hours ago. Then I did an update. Then I tried to configure VMWare to work with my system. It didn't work and during vmware-config.pl it said that I was running the linux-2.6.4-5 kernel, but I had linux-2.6.4-52 sources. I rebooted, and my sound, my ethernet, nothing worked. So I reinstalled. This time I configured VMWare before doing an online update. Everything worked great. Everything was detected as linux-2.6.4-52, which I assume is correct unless the original kernel that comes with the box set is hosed. Either way, it's something. One of the mirrors is bad, perhaps? Either way, one minute I experienced the "sound not working" problem and saw a distinct reason why (my kernel was hosed) and after reinstalling everything is peachy. So what is going exactly? Anyone know? Preston