The Adventure Begins - Laptop needs a new pair of shoes!

Alright, I decided to write this all down before I forget it. That way I'll have a reference should I need to reinstall AGAIN. Perhaps it is a sign of my love of adventure that I can mess up a system to the point that it's easier to reinstall the OS than it is to fix it. But I digress. Let me start at the beginning. . .

Chapter One - Laptop needs a new pair of shoes!

The situation was this:

1. I was tired of waiting 20-30 minutes for my laptop to boot/wake up, plus the time it took to change the network settings with a 3rd party ap, anytime I took it somewhere.
• Find a place to sit, plug in laptop, boot/wake it up
• Order food or beverage
• Come back and stare at screen, tap fingers impatiently
• Get food or beverage if I don't already have it
• Answer Zone Alarm permission questions, eat and or drink, stare at screen some more
• Click on my ap to change network settings, eat and or drink, etc.
• Finally, access local network. Surf/work for about 10-20 minutes until it's time to go.
2. As you can see not a terribly efficient use of time. Plus when I added in the hassle of packing and unpacking my less than tiny or lightweight machine, it just wasn't worth it.
3. But a new, shiny, ultralight machine was not in the current budget. I had already reinstalled XP more than once and put most of my data on an external hard drive and was unwilling to go through another automated voice call to get XP activated. (Can't configure the network until you log in, can't log in until you activate, must spend an eternity on the phone reciting numbers to a computer that tries to be encouraging, "Great! Now the 5th series!" (BTW: She doesn't understand if you call her names))
4. So it was time to install Linux