My ongoing Saga of moving to Linux

If your wondering where I have been, well, I apart from a summer vacation touring the South of England, I have been migrating slowly to Linux. The distribution I have currently chosen is Linux Mint. I think this is a more polished and stable version of Ubuntu, but not just that, but its default configuration is closer to how I prefer things to be configured.

I am still considering using Debian Testing, but am waiting to for Lenny (the current testing) to be released to see how long it takes for the new testing to stabilise.

So this is where the problems start. First delay was waiting for my new HDD to arrive for my laptop. After waiting a week for my HDD, I then suffered my next problem it was my Windows machine corrupting the Linx Mint livecd ISO download, not just once, but twice ! This added a few more days delay.
The next delay was that the livecd kept locking my laptop up. After 3 attempts on different nights I managed to get Mint installed. So about 3 weeks in and I have Linux Mint installed, but my laptop is still freezing. I download and run the Ubuntu 8.04 livecd and suffer the same problem, I work out its a display issue as the machine does not lockup when xorg is not running, so I create a new bug report on launchpad: Dell C400 (i830) freezes in Hardy. This take some more time to resolve and whilst this issue is ongoing, I then require a new laptop battery and I aslo decide to add a bit more ram. So eventually I get a stable Laptop and my new HDD decides to fail and make impressions of an angle grinder, so whilst that is being returned, I have reinstalled Mint on my old HDD, about 1 month on and I finally have a stable Linux install !