Today in computer horseshit:
A large object I keep on top of my computer to keep a fan from rattling (I don't know why this works) fell off. This has apparently spooked the damn thing, because there are now hardware issues that prevent the thing from even booting adequately to get the usual splash screen from the motherboard. After testing as much as I could, I've narrowed the issue down to the graphics card, CPU, or motherboard. I have abandoned all three and resolved to buy new ones.
Meanwhile, I move the hard drive over to an old computer from a long-since moved-out sibling. Obviously, the case is not correctly-sized, so my hard drive is sitting on top. The hard drive turns out to be failing some software validation thing, so Windows won't start. I can use a Linux LiveUSB to back everything up, though, so I do that and reinstall Windows. Turns out the computer's disk drive doesn't work, so I transplant that, too. Windows installs just fine, but it turns out it doesn't have drivers for the Ethernet adapter. Allegedly, it might be able to find them on the Internet, so I run out to buy a USB wireless adapter. It installs just fine, but it turns out Windows still can't figure out what the built-in adapter is, so I wind up finding the drivers manually. This eventually works, but now I need to reinstall Windows in order to get my ownership key thingy to work (because it's an "upgrade" copy, you have to install it manually then upgrade from THAT installation, because shenanigans). Obviously, it crashes halfway through gathering settings and files, so I'm currently reinstalling Windows so I can reinstall Windows.
So, while I'm doing all this, I figure I'll install Pidgin on my laptop. However, I have some issues with dependencies, particularly something to do with perl-base, which is the wrong version but can't find the correct one for no adequately explained reason. Going through several suggested fixes, I run apt-get -f install, which apparently tries to automatically fix dependencies. Unfortunately, it started by installing all kinds of things (including significant chunks of the OS itself, apparently), then suffered an error and quit after gutting things. So I had to reinstall that, too, but at least it worked properly and I was able to install Pidgin properly.