I installed dsl on my old computer, 16MB ram, don't know the hard drive specs. I chose the option that was copy from cd or hard drive. Yay. Restart I have to put in the boot disk (Smart BootManager) and put the cd in and go thru set up. I set it up, theres one question about Video modes. No idea what its asking so I just hit the last on (0F07 80x60). I know the rest of the set up questions. It loads, my screen looks like crap. This is possilbly the monitor. I right click and it brings down those list of things. I try to get into a few, click on them nothing happens. It just sits there. The only thing that worked was the pacman game. I am hoping to use this machine as a web server for my small website that I made for chemistry and possibly an ftp site for work I do at school to take home.

Questions:
Did I set it up correctly? If so why doesn't anything work?
Will DSL meet my needs as a webserver or should I look at a different OS?
Can I put in a linksys wireless-b network card, and will linux recognize it?

edit: This is my first time with linux so I have really not much idea what I am doing. I've read some on the subject but I don't understand stuff untill I do it.

What distribution are you using?

The newest one.

I had this sort of problem with Knoppix the first time I used it.
I've never used DSL (gonna try it though, got it on a magazine cover today!) but with Knoppix when you're prompted with "boot:" it expects you to tell it if you have specific requirements. For example: my monitor is crap and can't handle resolution above 1024x??? so I had to type "Knoppix screen=800x600" in order to get it to load properly. There should be some help guide available on start up, try pressing F1 or F2.... Can't help you more than that

Yeah, I played with DSL last night and it's got the same start-up as Knoppix (being based on Knoppix and all...) so just hit F2 and all will become clear.

If you want a distribution that you can do anything with then use Gentoo. The portage system makes it totally customizable and you can opt to have Xfree or not and install + compile new packages through the "emerge package-name" command. It has a pretty advanced setup since there is no fancy GUI to guide you through the setup process but there's an extensive online installation guide and you can get the 3 CD distro plus the guide printed out for only $10. Or you can d/l it if you have a fast connection like I do. It used to be $15 too so it actually got cheaper unlike most distros since it actually makes money.

I often advertise Gentoo, but I suppose I can't help how awesome it is.