1. How the hell do i connect to the net (broadband)?
Wireless or wired. As root post;
ifconfig
and
ifconfig -a
2.There is a flicker on my laptop screen(compaq v2000) when i run Linux. How do i configure the refresh rate?
/etc/xorg.conf
http://mandriva.vmlinuz.ca/index.php...vironment/Xorg
3.How does one "install" drivers in Linux?
For what kind of hardware;
http://doc.mandrivalinux.com/Mandrak...-hardware.html
4.How do i detect my sound card?
as root;
lspci
5.My Laptop runs dual os(Winn xp being the other) . Can i read drives of windows from Linux and vice versa? pls advise?
yes
6.Which are the best sites for downloading Linux apps?
For mandrake I have used urpmi;
http://urpmi.org/