Bugger

I bought a USB dongle in Asda which I thought would be useful when we are over here in the UK and want a connection to the Internet.

The deal was £35 for the dongle including £15 top-up - not bad. Best of all the SIM won't expire if I don't use it for a few months.

Now I knew there would not be the software to run a Vodafone dongle under Linpus Linux on my netbook but I was sure that somewhere on the Internet someone would have found a way to do this.

Sure enough, there is a site called Betavine which, not only has the software but shows comprehensive instructions to help you install it. It all looked straightforward and was until I tried to complete the installation. Now the Add/Remove program manager stalls trying to find the downloaded package. I can neither connect the dongle nor get back to where I was to try again.

It looks like I might have to re install the whole operating system when we get back to Spain and start from scratch. Linux has a lot of virtues - it is free, it takes very few resources and it loads quickly. When it gets screwed up though, it is a bugger.