In windows you would log in to MSN to get updates and freebies right?

Well, the equivalent for this in RHEL is to use a website called a "repository".

If you want, say, mplayer, you enter the command:

yum install mplayer

into a terminal and the yum program goes and gets mplayer and everything else it needs to run.

(there are graphical ways to do this too.)

The trouble is, by default it will try to use the RedHat Network for this. You need to pay to get access to these.

An alternative to RHN is DAG. So you don't have to pay.

You have made this hard on yourself by choosing a distro which has commercial support. So you have to work around things.

By comparison, if you want to use MSN, but you do not have a valid license, then you are out of luck. You cannot get updates.

Even so, you can sometimes still get software from a third party. And you can do that with RHEL too. You need to look for rpm files for RHEL5 - hopefully for the same kernel. Or, you can look for source-code files - usually .tar.gz, and install that way.

However - if you want it to be easy, you need to use a different distro.
If you use CentOS, this will be exactly like RHEL, but the proper repos are configured by default. You do not need to pay.

"satisfactory" is subjective - it's different between different people. The solutions present are highly satisfactory - but remember, the purpose of MS software is to restrict you, the purpose of free/open software is to set you free. The install methods are part of that.

i.e. When you use MSN, you give MS permission to look through your computer to see what you have already and then tells you what is available. When you use a free software repository, the repo just tells you what it has, your computer works out what you need and tells you. You pick the programs. The only info you tell the vendor is what programs you order. They don't need to know every detail about your computer.

It did not work because you did it wrong.

RHEL usually comes with openoffice.org.

you install these programs with

yum update
yum install openoffice*
yum install vlc


In linux we generally do not install software from what we get from the developers website.

Note: if you are trying to run something like "install.exe" - that won't worx. That is Windows only software. You do not expect mac software to run in windows? So why expect windows software to run in linux?

If you want RHEL but don't want to pay, use Centos, which will give you everything RHEL has. Its the same code but free.

Use the yum cmd to install stuff as simon said.

The EPEL repo I referred to has extra sw that doesn't appear in RHEL/Centos, but is designed to run on those.
To handle proprietary codecs you may need to use EPEL.

I've generally found that mplayer seems to handle almost everything; I'd start with that.