I am trying to run linux on my laptop but it will not recognise modem and wireless card. I have run Win98 and XP on it and they have alowed me to install drivers or automatically installed drivers. I found drivers for my wireless but I have idea of how to install them. I can not find anyplace in linux to "install new hardware." I can look at hardware but no way to insall it. Is there anyway to "Search for new hardware?" Is there a "Control Pannel?" There seems to be a something missing in linux for installing hardware.

I don't have a laptop, but in general, if I plug in new hardware, rebooting either recognizes the hardware and automatically installs the driver or b) recognizes the hardware is present and tells me it doesn't know what to do with it. You can check the boot up logs by typing dmesg.

Some modems and wireless cards are not supported by linux or require significant tinkering to get to work. Try googling for you specific card name and the word "linux". Usually if your card is supported, there will be step by step howto. In general, windows drivers will be useless to you in linux. In linux, drivers are usually referred to as "modules".

Which distro are you using? The likelihood is that your modem and wireless card are not supported "out of the box" and need some installing manually.

What are the make/models of your cards? For wireless you will probably need Ndiswrapper (or similar) and for your modem you should check http://linmodems.org/