And why not SH3D 6.3???

Because he use repository version.

Yep. And because I wrote that the night before I located the .deb for SH3D 6.3...

so I'm now running 6.3

Read this post . I've write it especially for guys like You.

Many thanks. I've read it - it looks awesome - when I've got time, I'll go through it step by step.

Your Core2Duo is not a problem BUT if You have a dedicated graphic card You will need some more settings.
After this operation success we could go to next step.
(Only If You want [B-)] ).

Well, my old 2-core laptop runs v4.3 fine - just very slow - and I can even view "top view" for Furniture Icons in Plan in that.

However, v6.1.2 and v6.3 has the Furniture Icons in Plan option greyed out and only displays "catalog icons". I've had that problem on both the old 2-core laptop and the "new" 4-core "media machine".