for starters, im 15 and know very little about Linux.
my mom bought a new laptop so my dad got her old one
and i got my dads old one.

okay enough introduction

http://www.fejes.net/frank/toshiba_2060cds/
i need to do all that is on that page
can someone point me where i can do that

ohh and i already have redhat 5.2 downloaded

Whoa!!

Start with something a bit more modern--RedHat 5.2 is seriously obsolete--I am amazed you could even find it.

and the link is for installation of v 6.0---also hopelessly out of date. (But--assuming that that is the model you have---SOME may be relevant)

Take a look at my "getting started with Linux" article---link below.

Short answer: Get somethig in the top ten on the "hit list" at distrowatch.com

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.
It would be nice to know your laptop's hardware specifications. The amount of RAM will determine what distribution and desktop/windows manager to try.

yeah i forgot to mention that the computer
is older than dirtand that redhat 5.2 is
known to work on it so im gonna try to stay safe
with it (i tried unbunt but it told me that my
bois was a year to old and then i found out it
didnt meet system requirements

Toshiba Satellite 2060CDS - K6-2 366 MHz - 12.1" DSTN
Manufacturer: Toshiba
Part number: PAS206U-S2CW8

Product Short Spec:
Processor: AMD K6-2 (366 MHz)
RAM installed: 32 MB SDRAM
Weight: 6.8 lbs
Display: 12.1 in DSTN passive matrix
OS provided: Microsoft Windows 98

Edit: if someone thinks theres a better version for me
tell me

32MB of RAM will be pretty marginal for any kind of GUI interface. Maybe XFCE??

Newer distros have a better chance of working with old HW than do old distros.

You might want to look into things like DSL (Damn Small Linux) (or is it DARN??.... )

32MB is the big problem here!
Very recently, I used a PII350 (even worse than yours) with latest Mandriva (2007 at that time). But it had 320MB RAM!

With only 32MB RAM, you'll have better luck with Damn Small Linux or something like that. DSL is actually a bit extreme for such a laptop, and you may try something a little more elaborate.

Yves.

dsl is the one for me?
okay, but is there anything special i need to do?
(because the page for redhat5.2 said stuff about buitlding some sound kernal or something )

Download it and install it. (I've never used it--I assume it comes on a CD)
Once again, forget about this fossil---start with an up-to-date distro.

Don't remember if you said whether that laptop has a CD drive.....

yeah it has a cd drive

i give thanks for all those who could help
i appreciate it ALOT

wow yeah burning the cd took like 2 seconds and
wow it works, damnn i would have sat there with redhat5.2

mucho mucho gracias


edit: the mouse installed with the laptop (little gray ball in the center of the keyboard) stopped working but i had a spare mouse that works fine

----------------
1. Is there ANY way you can get more RAM onto the machine? Even getting up to 128meg of RAM gives you many more distrobution possibilities, not to mention performance enhancements.

2. Will you be dual-booting Win98 and Linux?

3. XFCE or Ice or such for your graphical user interface. KDE or Gnome WILL work (with more RAM), but your system will be slow enough as is, so keep your system demands as light as possible.

4. Check out ABIWriter for your word processor, and some of the lighter spreadsheet programs.

i dont know if ill find anymore ram for it
no dual booting
i dont understand 3 or 4

wait i do understand 4

3 is referring to different types of window managers you can use. XFCE and IceWM are both excellent, but it's all a matter of comfort. To me, IceWM is more of a Windows-type setting in a way, and XFCE is more powerful. Damn Small comes with Fluxbox to get you started (unless they changed it since I last used it), which is also an excellent lightweight window manager. It's mainly just a question of comfort and what you want to do with this computer.