This is regarding Red Hat Linux 5.2.
I get the following error messages:
Cannot open root device 08:22 and
Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:22

The one released in 1998!?

Why are you trying to install such an old and unsupported OS?

Have you tried putting the error messages into a search engine yet?

Additionally dropping in an error message is not enough. Would be better to explain what are you trying to achieve, on which hardware and what [step] caused that error message.

RHL 5.2 was 32 bit, and likely does not have support for most of the hardware in your system. I am reasonably sure it only supported IDE drive interfaces and likely will not function with a SATA drive controller. I could not even get RHL 6 to function in a VM when I tried recently.

It could be about "Redhat Enterprise Linux 5.2": RHEL 5.2 (released 2008-05-21.)

The latest version was rhel 5.11 / CentOS 5.11 (2014-09-16.)

Needing something to replace Windows 95?

I am trying to install it on an IBM Thinkcentre S50 with 1 GByte of RAM, both Hard Drive and DVD are SATA, though they can be on a IDE cable too. The DVD works fine on the SATA. I know it is an old version of Red Hat Linux but I had to start somewhere. Pity it just can't start setting up the partitions by itself as some distros did. It appears I have to set up the partitions myself. I had a swap partition of nearly 400 MBytes, and the rest split in half for root and data. If it is unsupported, it there a Red Hat version which is supported and still works on a 32bit system?

The hardware is an IBM Thinkcentre with 1 GByte of RAM and one TB hard drive. I thought, let's marry Red Hat and IBM as they are doing it already.

antiX would be a good fit for hardware released around 2003.

There are no supported version of Red Hat Linux since 2003/2004.

It was succeeded by Red Hat Enterprise Linux - RHEL - and Fedora.

RHEL has two supported versions, 7 and 8, which I suspect are 64-bit only. (Someone with a Red Hat Subscription could probably confirm if 32-bit downloads are available.)
Likewise, given Fedora's rapid release cycle, I doubt they still maintain a 32-bit edition.

DistroWatch search identifies two potential distros, both based on RHEL - Scientific Linux 6 (equivalent to RHEL6) appears to be the last 32-bit version available, whilst Springdale Linux appears to offer 32-bit for v7.

However, support doesn't matter if you're just playing around (and assuming you're not planning to put the machine online), so since the IBM Thinkcentre S50 appears to be a 2003 machine, maybe you should try either Red Hat Linux v9 or RHEL v3, which presumably have a better chance of supporting that specific hardware.

Once I get my next batch of blank CDs I will give Springdale a try.