Hmm. That new, huh.
We were all there once, so don't sweat it. Just write down what you learn so you, too, can pass it on to others. They will thank you for it.
You can log into linux as one of two persona's: root, or as a "normal" user. When you loaded RH9 it wanted you to cteate a root password; you did this fairly early in the install process. That passowrd will make you root. The person who has the power to do eveything and anything. Except for installing some software and doing testing, never log in as root. When you booted your machine for the first time, RH asked you to create at least one normal user. This is the "you" that you should normally log in as.
Now then, while RH offers you a graphical user interface (GUI) to use, there is an underlying command line interface (CLI) which will let you access a number of programs. To RH's credit, many of them now have GUI front ends, rather than the old style CLI; but many do not and so you will have to learn to use the CLI.
On the RH menu, under system tools (I think, this is from memory) you will find an application called terminal, or xterm or some such. It will open a window with a blinking prompt, and look much like an old Microsoft DOS window in Windows. At this prompt
type this:
su - root
You will then be asked for a password. This is root's password. When you give it successfully, the name at the prompt will change (big CLUE!).
Now type
ifconfig
You should then be able to use your mouse and cut and paste the output to your browser to post in a message here.
Next type
netstat -nr
Post that output. Oh, be sure to hit the "enter key" at the end of each command after you type it. That's the signal linux needs to "run" the command.
When you are done being root, just type
exit
and that will return you to being you.
If you need greater detail, just say so.
Cheers--
Charles
