i have had redhat 9.0 for one week now and i cannot seem to succeed in anythiing that i enter in the terminal. basically all i can do is change my account to root. haha not much more exciting that that. i want to be able to install mplayer, rdesktop, p2p(legal of course), watch dvds and hopefully do a little programming. i have no problem installing everything onto my machine. i have done away with windows for a while, cause i need a change. i guess i would like a few suggestions in order to complete all the tasks i mentioned above. i would also really appreciate my touchpad scrolling and tap forward and back functions again. starting to miss them. i have a toshiba satellite 1105 laptop. thank you

Take a look at this page, it should cover most of the questions.

Enjoy,
Eric.

thank you very much, that page was very helpful. i will gladly take more suggestions. will i need to install everything off the installation cds. is there already a video(mpg, avi)/dvd player that comes with redhat 9.0

I think so, I use Mandrake 10.0 and Totem came with it. If there is not one already there you could take a look at XMMS, it is quite easy to use and comes with a video plugin.

Enjoy,
Eric.