A huge weight...

...seems to have lifted from me. Mostly because After more time than I'd like, I have the Media PC running again under UNBUNTU. Mint Linux seemed hopeful, but warped itself into un-usability when attempted set up the video card to be able to use the TV.

That was a more or less straight-forward procedure under Windows(install the NVidia Driver, pick the settings, reboot) but under Linux (Mind or Ubuntu)  I had to activate the "nasty" proprietary driver first, then install a settings utility for it (not an obvious step, because that came with the drivrs under Windows), make the TV a TWIN of the monitor, reboot, manually edit a file called xorg.conf (so that Nvidia knew it was a PAL-B tv) and reboot again!

Took a long time to do, with lots of minor and major hiccups along the way, but I got it done. Which means that I have more or less what I had under Windows - a monitor with a TV acting as an extension to the desktop. May not sound that good, but I found last night and this morning that VLC and the built in movie player can play video I have on the home network, and very nicely too (in fact, a LOT SMOOTHER than Windows). So at last I really do have a decent Media PC for what I need (I don't record TV of digital tuners directly, so that simplifies a lot of things).  :)

So the big drama (as far as having a media PC) is pretty much over. The only issues I have now are: what to do with Mint Linux (restore/replace/discard it); should I also install a stand-alone version of XBMC on it, and what do I do about the few Windows-only  Programs I was using on the PC before (am going to explore VirtualBox and Wine on this). For now I can run them on the other PCs and copy the results over. So there's now no great need or urge to spend more money on replacing the hardware. I realise that will need to eventually, but when I do I suspect I'll be installing Linux on the new PC as well.