Because Firefox kept locking up and various other things were out of date, I decided to upgrade to the latest version of Linux Mint. The upgrade seemed to work but resulted in a blank desktop, so I decided a complete re-install was required. So I backed up the /home directory to an external USB hard drive, programmed a USB key with a Mint .iso and booted up into the latest Mint. That went fine. Then I tried to restore the backup of the home directory, the computer announced that it couldn't read the file, something about 'bad superblock', which is enough to bring one's heart to a complete and utter stop. *Fortunately*, bumping against the USB cable got it working, and I think the problem was a bad connector. OK, piece of cake from here on, right? Then in the process of moving files from the backup to my home directory, I forgot that I was in superuser mode and ~ was shorthand for /root. That made a mess, and in the process of sorting out that, I moved the /bin directory. So of course, no commands worked at all. (This reminds me of the scenario where someone executes rm -rf * in superuser mode and only discovers the mistake when the computer announces: rm command not found. I know someone who actually did that. (Not me ;) ). Arrrgh. So I decided that the simplest route was to re-install. Then, for some reason, the USB key wouldn't boot. Fortunately, an old Knoppix CD did boot, establishing that boot from CD was still working. So I prevailed on my friend Gabriel to burn me an .iso on DVD, and that worked. So, to my colleagues in TLUG, I ask: How would you deal with the re-location of /bin, assuming you didn't want to re-install? Peter -- Peter Hiscocks Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto http://www.syscompdesign.com USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator 647-839-0325