This may be yet another dumb question from me but:

might it be possible to create a perl or shell script diagnostic tool which 
checked for the common faults. I am thinking of the old "MSD" for Dos PCs. 

It could (perhaps) check what hardware is available, what drives are mounted 
where, amount of swap, number of allowable processes. 

Such a script would be helpful to someone like me who has used unix boxes for 
ages but has never supported one myself. It would also be helpful when people 
report bugs, or ask for help. They can give the output from this program as 
reference. 

Alex MC