[Short Story]
After a dozen or so attempts to install and configure Redhat 7.3 on my Dell Inspiron, I have come to the conclusion that it is not possible to have network access and a bit depth larger than 8 at the same time. Does anyone know why on earth this is the case?

[Long Story]
I have a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop, on a partition of which I am installing Redhat 7.3. The machine has a 2.4GHz P4, 1 GB RAM, a 32 MB Radeon 7500 video card, a Broadcom ethernet card, and an Orinoco Gold WiFi card.

The X configuration part of the installation process allows me to configure X at my card's best resolution and depth: 1400X1050, 24 bit. I can then proceed to fire up Linux, startx, and everything is fine. Then I go on to set up my network. Because it is extremely difficult to get my particular ethernet card to work, I'm just setting up WiFi instead. After I get the WiFi card set up, the next time I reboot, the screen goes black when X tries to start. From there, there is no option but to restart the machine. I cannot break out of X. (I'm using GNOME BTW.)

So, I have now reinstalled about a dozen times, ran Xconfigurator countless times and have arrived at the above mentioned conclusion: once the network connection is set up, I cannot use a bit depth greater than 8. I can go to full resolution (1400x1050), but cannot go to 16 or 24 bit depth and have GNOME/X continue to work.

Can anyone tell me why this is the case, and what can be done to fix it? Do people ever actually use Linux, or do they just spend all their time configuring it?