So I had originally played with the idea of changing out my laptop for my trip to Chile, or to put in a new internal drive for my four-year-old machine. However, I think that I'll try a different tactic.
Purchase an external drive, dump all my data onto that drive, format my computer, re-install Windows XP (downloading all the service packs and stuff), also install Ubuntu, and have the option to load as either. This way I can use Linux as my 'default' OS, and use XP when I need to use a program that doesn't work on Linux. (Of course, I'll download OpenOffice so I can do my wordprocessing stuff and Firefox to let me do interweb surfing.)
Another benefit of this option is that I can remove the partition on my drive - something that has driven me a little batty at times. Hopefully, the re-install will also fix some bugs that seem to have developed over time, like my wireless card becoming incompatible with the UMich wireless system, automatically showing me the blue screen of death when I try to connect.
I'll be getting the external drive on the fourth, so we'll soon see whether my idea was folly or not... (I plan on copying all my images onto DVD so I can have them in a more physically robust form. However, based on the timeline at Amazon, this might be after I transfer my files onto the external drive, meaning that I should probably pick up some blank DVDs.)
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