Hmm, I’ve been fighting a series of re-installs, and have finally hit on “it’s me, not you” and have run the self diagnostic tools on my Dell Inspiron. It looks like my ram may have crapped out and will need replacing. In the meantime, I had been trying to find a replacement Ubuntu desktop - I know it’s gnome heavy, but the Pop_os gtk theme is very pretty. I’ll reinstall after ram replacement - thank goodness this is an older laptop and is easily screwed apart 