My oh my! ChickPea! I had no idea you were so 'into' all the hardware stuff - enough to build your own

I'm practically useless that way!

As it stands, the laptop needs to be taken apart for a thorough clean (I did a sort of amateur job on it a few months ago by taking the back off it and using a can of compressed air, but I wasn't brave enough to undo the screws that were holding everything together inside the machine), so I might just ask for a bit of help when I take it down to the local repair shop to have that done - help that includes me being shown how to install whichever build of Linux seems best.

LOL! I get quite irritated with my own lack of courage, but since this is the only PC I have, and I won't be able to get hold of another one for quite some time, I feel I really need someone to be watching over my shoulder and shouting stuff like "No! Don't touch that!!!" or, "Yes, that's the one I meant!"

In the meantime though, I will do as Straf and Falconius suggest and walk around this thing several times till I'm happy that I really understand what I'm about to do