1. Most distros have a hardware display util in them these days, poke around in your System menu, I'm sure you'll find something.
2. I don't think RH9 auto mounts USB devices. You'll need to mount your USB device manually. Plenty of doco on this site about how to do it.
3. You'll need to find out more about what modems you have and search google to find information about how to install them.
http://www.linmodems.org/ is a good place to start for your winmodem. Not sure about the USB ADSL modem, just chuck it through google.
Seeya,
Finn.