Hello all. I have never touched linux before and I wouldn't have a clue how to use it. I have just installed Redhat V8 onto a laptop and I am lost. I can barely manage to copy a file from a cd onto a floppy with it. I'm sure it's just a matter of getting used to it. Anyway, how do I find out if the modem is installed or not? Where's the device manager? How do I set up my internet connection? Where's the file manager? Any tips would be soooooo much appreciated. Many thanks

For a start you may want to consider upgrading to a newer version of redhat (it is now called fedora) or another distro as your one is getting quite old now and things have improved a lot recently. What sort of modem do you have? Internal, external, USB? Unless it is a proper hardware modem you may have some promlems getting it going as most of the software written for it would have been designed for windoze. Check out www.linmodems.org and www.linux-on-laptops.com which may help. All devices under GNU/Linux are treated as files and are located under /dev. If you are running KDE then you should be able to find a graphical view of your hardware, a little like the windoze device manager. Worry about your internet connection once you have your modem going! There are many file browsers, two of the most popular are probably konqueror for KDE and nautilus for Gnome. If you want a text based one try Midnight Commander (mc). For an interesting read on switching from DOS/windoze to linux check out: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/DOS-Win-to-Linux-HOWTO.html

Hello, I just wanted to say thanks for the link and sorry for taking so long to come back and look for a reply. I've been living in a hurricane lately... feels like it anyway, lol... so thanks very much! I will have a read at that link.