Hating OS upgrades

OK, so after having to do a clean install to upgrade from Gutsy to Hardy, and thereby losing all my downloaded packages and customizations, I have thought that the wiser thing would be to record all the changes made to the system.

FIRST: the most important thing: The spinning hard drive.
Never forget that your hard drive goes nuts. You've used it for a whole month with it spinning up and down every 5 seconds, so the life of the poor thing has been significantly shortened.
Here is the solution, you get it by searching "hard drive spinning up/down ubuntu"
SOLUTION:
Add startup script:
sudo gedit /etc/init.d/local_settings
Now add this:
hdparm -B 254 /dev/xxx
...whereas 'xxx' represents your hard drive. (personal note: xxx = sda)

Make it executable:
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/local_settings
Create symb-link:
sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/local_settings /etc/rc2.d/S99local_settings
Restart & the weird clicking sound should now have disappeared. Guess that's it!

THEN. I've tried to make the backspace key work. To do this, had to type
about:config
in the address bar of the browser. Then search for ‘browser.backspace_action’ and change its value to 0 (zero).
NOTE: the default value was 2.

That's it for the moment,Now, if only I can remember how to install compiz-fusion and awn-bzr, maybe I can showcase the gorgeous icons I've downloaded...