I do,nt know if I like puters,but they exercise, a sort of mystical fasination on me. I think it might be the jargon,terminology that is never ending, and now of course the moral crusade and idealism of the whole Linux idea is akin to christianity aposition to "an eye for an eye" Came across that book last night "the Cathedral &the Bazzar" Powerfull title and concept. Hav'nt read it yet though.Alongside the " Anti-Globalisation" movement Linux seems to have some rare idealism about it, when idealism is no what it used to be.
Just have my first PC ( I'm over 50) about 8 months and XP home has been easy and well behaved but looking for a challenge and like taking things apart so this A.M finally threw caution to the wind and banged in a magazine copy of Mandrake 9.1. The install and resizing was fast and easy, but no modem or cd roms workin yet.
Also have Brother Laser HL 1230 and small graphic tablet. Any chance they will work some day. Have aLinux HSF modem driver on XP partition,(DOS)floppy and CDR but do'nt know how to install in 'drake.Rgds Martin

good to see you here; sorry i didn't get to it sooner, but this is the first time i've looked at the new members place. i think you're gonna like linux, especially when it makes your pc available to do what you want as you would have your house or your other stuff suitable to your wants and needs. if you are a tinkerer, there will be great satisfaction in getting things going and even more in seeing how well they do go.
the people here have been really good and i believe they will be helpful.
as to your modem, i would just get an external modem-most of them seem to work well and i have gotten them for $35. the cdrom gave me more trouble on mandrake than other distros and i don't know why except that mandrake had trouble with their supermount utility at one point. make sure it is listed in /etc/fstab and try mounting it with: mount -t iso9660 /dev/whatever(hdc,etc.) /mnt/cdrom and then open the songs with noatun or kaboodle or xmms. that's not a pop it in and play setup, but it's a start and may lead you to the real solution.
well, ok, enjoy linux and this site and good luck.