Well that wasn't so hard ... (part 1)

Here we go then...

First off is to get both old and new machines up to scratch. A swift visit to the download site, https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/ to grab buster and i note with some little annoyance that the "lite" version of buster has gone from the page in the last couple of weeks, leaving me with only the "desktop" version. Oh well.

With the download saved, it's off to grab what has been renamed the "Balena Etcher" from https://www.balena.io/etcher/ to burn the zip files to SD. And with lightning speed, we're up. I see the new desktop even sorts out the wi-fi connection for you these days, things certainly have moved on (!)

So, with both Pi's booting, time to sort out the static IP address. It's a doddle really, as long as you make sure you are not using those predictive network names and stick to the old school "wlan0" or "eth0". And a swift "ifconfig" will tell you if you are. With that sorted, all you now need do is edit /etc/dhcpcd.conf using sudo <your favourite editor> and set it up as follows

interface eth0 (or whatever)
static ip_address=192.168.0.100/24 (or whatever you need)
static routers=192.168.0.1 (or whatever your router's address is)
static domain_name_servers=192.168.0.1 8.8.8.8 (or whatever)

The above works for me. My router is set to 192.168.0.1 and resolves domain names using my ISP's server. The second set of numbers is Google's DNS and let's be honest if they wont resolve a number they probably don't want you to find it (probably because whoever it is isn't paying them enough of a bribe.