Success! Thank you, thank you, thank you!Just a few additional details for the benefit of anyone else who might be following this path.
Ultimately I couldn't add the user with the specified group ID, so I created the user without specifying the gid, and then changed the group ID.
Also, I had to add the user to the sudoers file with adduser jim sudoNow I have a good deal of cleanup yet to do, and things to install, but I have a working laptop and account!
