The new Vash
The new Vash - my reconstituted mail and web server - is now functional and seems to be working smoothly.
This was the most significant hardware operation I've ever done without the help of Dad. I removed Vash's hard drive and DVD-ROM, and put them in the former body of Frodo (which used to be my primary desktop machine before Gandalf was built). I removed Frodo's hard drive and switched the jumper to the slave setting. All of this required a little bit of research, as the jumper settings weren't marked on the hard drives.
The new Vash booted right up, and didn't seem to care that it was on an entirely different motherboard. Linux never ceases to amaze me. Everything works - IMAP, Samba, Apache, the works. And it seems faster and more stable than the former Vash.
Next I had to figure out how to format and mount a new hard drive, which I'd never done before. An old book on Red Hat helped me with that (though I'm now using Debian). It went smoothly, and I now have a large new chunk of disk space that I have no idea what I'm going to do with.
I considered reinstalling Debian, but everything is working rather well right now, and I have other things I need to do. I also considered renaming the system, since Vash is no longer really Vash, but Vash-in-Frodo's-body, but I think I'll keep it the way it is for now.
I am proud of myself. Today is going well.