I won't hesitate to say i'm a total newb when it comes to Linux
but got severely sick of win$hit so have resorted and converted
I recently just got YUM installed and when I type " yum update "
I get the following

Unable to find pid
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: Red Hat Linux 9 - i386 - Base
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/yum", line 30, in <module>
yummain.main(sys.argv[1:])
File "/usr/share/yum/yummain.py", line 233, in main
clientStuff.get_package_info_from_servers(serverlist, HeaderInfo)
File "/usr/share/yum/clientStuff.py", line 846, in get_package_info_from_servers
progress_obj=None)
File "/usr/share/yum/clientStuff.py", line 1327, in grab
bandwidth, conf.retries, retrycodes, checkfunc)
File "/usr/share/yum/urlgrabber.py", line 237, in retrygrab
progress_obj, throttle, bandwidth)
File "/usr/share/yum/urlgrabber.py", line 314, in urlgrab
fo = urllib2.urlopen(url)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/urllib2.py", line 121, in urlopen
return _opener.open(url, data)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/urllib2.py", line 380, in open
response = meth(req, response)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/urllib2.py", line 487, in http_response
code, msg, hdrs = response.code, response.msg, response.info()
AttributeError: HTTPResponse instance has no attribute 'code'

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

From your output you posted, you're running Red Hat Linux 9, not Fedora 9 (it's been "Fedora" since 7, by the way, not "Fedora Core". Just a friendly FYI). Red Hat Linux 9 has been End of Life since 2004, which means no new updates, and no new package installs. Yum was never meant to run on RHL 9, either.

The version number reset at RHL 9 because Red Hat forked RHL into two different distributions: "Fedora Core" (later Fedora) for the Linux community and "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" for the Enterprise world. We're now at Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and Fedora 9.

To double-check that you're running the wrong version, run this command:

cat /etc/redhat-release

If it says something like:

Red Hat Linux release 9 (Shrike)

then you're running the very old, no longer supported RHL 9. Your best bet would be to install Fedora 9, available from fedoraproject.org. On the other hand, if it says:

Fedora release 9 (Sulphur)

you are running Fedora 9, and the problem remains unresolved.

after running the command you had asked me to run it gives me the following

Fedora release 9 (Sulphur)

do i have yum installed wrong?

Huh... maybe. Was yum not installed automatically? It should be installed by default on Fedora 9.

Post the output of these commands:

rpm -q yum
cat /etc/yum.conf
ls -1 /etc/yum.repos.d/

Note that's a 1 (numeral one) in the last command.

rpm -q yum
yum-3.2.16-2.fc9.noarch

cat /etc/yum.conf
[main]
cachedir=/var/cache/yum
debuglevel=2
logfile=/var/log/yum.log
pkgpolicy=newest
distroverpkg=redhat-release
tolerant=1
exactarch=1

[base]
name=Red Hat Linux $releasever - $basearch - Base
baseurl=http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/$releasever/$basearch/


[updates]
name=Red Hat Linux $releasever - Updates
baseurl=http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/updates/$releasever/

ls -1 /etc/yum.repos.d/
fedora-rawhide.repo
fedora.repo
fedora-updates.repo
fedora-updates-testing.repo
livna-devel.repo
livna.repo
livna-testing.repo

These lines in yum.conf seem suspect, since it's the repo that yum is breaking on:

[base]
name=Red Hat Linux $releasever - $basearch - Base
baseurl=http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/$releasever/$basearch/


[updates]
name=Red Hat Linux $releasever - Updates
baseurl=http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/updates/$releasever/

Also, you've overridden the default '[updates]' repo here. Try changing those lines to:

#[base]
#name=Red Hat Linux $releasever - $basearch - Base
#baseurl=http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/$releasever/$basearch/


#[updates]
#name=Red Hat Linux $releasever - Updates
#baseurl=http://mirror.dulug.duke.edu/pub/yum-repository/redhat/updates/$releasever/

(i.e., comment them out) and see if yum works.