thanks for your long and detailed answer kevin, i added repositories, pinned the system, managed to install tk8.4 and now pd (extended 0.40.3) loads with gui and all but it's missing libs still. pdp, pipid and gem. i will need gem (i know the eee is not the perfect machine, but it's really minor gem action). a friend managed to install hans' 0.39 deb package and gem works. is there a reason why gem shouldn't be properly installed using 0.40 ? workarounds? should i uninstall 0.40 and reinstall 0.39? (and how?) best! r