Well, it's time. I finally think I've got enough tuits to see this through from start to finish.
I have mondorescue and its components installed [http://www.mondorescue.com/], the CD-RW is installed and functional, I have a stack of blanks, and RHL 9 is already burned and ready to be installed/upgraded on the present box.
All I need now is some uninterrupted time with which to study the mondo/mindi manuals, do a test backup and verify, a test restore, and then on to the main backup and verify..
once all THAT is accomplished, for my next trick I will attempt to do an 'upgrade' of RHL 8 to RHL 9 for the first time. and pray. a lot.
Then comes the fun part of re-compiling the additional software I have installed, such as blackbox, a few windowmaker dock apps, a game or two, the nvidia drivers, etc etc.
Nothing is ever easy.