Going on the list of goals:
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1. Use Linux to access the internet through modem.
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Given that the modem is probably a winmodem (not necessarily so), I doubt you'll manage this. I tried this ages ago as well; back in the slackware 3.x / 4.x days, and winmodems just would not work... Too bad. The workaround is getting drivers and recompile them. Not something I would suggest for a new Linux user nowadays.
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2. Use Linux to access the internet through plug-in ethernet device in which I plug into my computer. Device specifications are Xircom RealPort Ethernet 10/100 RE-100. [Note, I have a wireless router, with plug-in ethernet holes if necessary, and a functional internet Comcast signal operating now.]
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This worked back then, and still does. Ethernet cards got detected fine. This was the easy part ;-)
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3. Possibly, use linux to access the internet thru plug-in wireless card device. [Device specs: Belkin Wireless Notebook Network Card 802.11g 2.4 GHz]
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Unlikely that this will work. Wireless is something that only got supported somehwere late in the 2.4 kernels if my memory is anything worth relying on.
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4. Install X Window environment
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If you do a full Slack installation, X comes along. In 4.0 it was still not very easy to set it up, althugh some setup scripts worked pretty fine. 10.x and later should help you out much better. 12.2 is still the way to go, in fact; I am currently running Slack -current on a Pentium2 with only 64megs of memory, obviously I refrain from running X. (More
memory incoming for that, just to make the machine work)
12.2 will give you better tools to setup and configure your system in a more easy manner, I expect 13.0 to make your life even easier.
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5. Install some program equal to Microsoft Office so I can create word documents, spreadsheets, and/or presentations.
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Not sure how this would perform, but OpenOffice.org sounds like the program to use for this, as -afaik- it is one of the few programs that can somewhat read and write Word and Excel files.
That you say "Slackware was made to be flexible"; that much is true, but flexible and able to do everything is two different things ;-) Back in the days of 4.0 the world looked much different, people ran windows 3.11, 95 and maybe a few already 98; Look at how desktops look nowadays, the world has changed beyond recognition. What Linux was capable of back then and right now has drastically changed as well. Use it to your advantage.
Slackware is known to be the most reliable and stable distribution with each release. ( -current does not count as such, that's for those who like to cut their fingers on the bleeding edge!) 12.2 is very stable and allows for some practical maintenance tools I missed in prior versions (aka slackpkg) Don't hesitate to run the latest release, the kernel only got better as did almost all the stuff Pat put into Slackware. I wonder why you would choose to do a fresh install of an old version. Sometimes people do that for "good old time"-'s sake. Especially if you're new, I'd go with the latest release (12.2 in this case, it's been out for some time and was stable from day 1. Patches are available on the mirrors and easily installable with slackpkg)
The images, as said are bootable; I think it would mess things up if you tell Roxio to "manipulate" the image. It should just take the image and put it on disk, no questions asked :-) The slackbook (on
www.slackware.com) should help you a long way on the run; But feel free to ask questions any time.
