[Scottish] Thanks SLUGgers ! !

[babaguy]

 Dear One & All,     Thank you for all for your thoughtful and courteous help - I've printed out your replies on the family computer back at the ranch, and will try everything you've mentioned.
     In the interests of sharing information, I'll say these things however......
     There WAS a manual with 9.1 Personal - but it's very thin and tells you everything you except what you're actually looking for ! 
     There is a two disk set in Suse Personal 9.1 - but it DOES advise you that if disk one won't boot for some reason, you can just use disk 2 - I don't know why this might be, probably something to do with the hardware in one's machine recognising it.....
     The modem I bought is external and is a USB one - I may bite the bullet and buy another serial port one, as I see is suggested..........
     I'm not a power Windows user, or a power ANYthing-user; I know very little about computers or computing languages - but I HAVE been reading LINUX Format for years (more so two or three years ago) and always thought that when I got a computer of MY OWN, I'd go for it.
     The computer I'm using is one I FOUND ! (a metal cased Compac pentium III - made in 2000)
     I reloaded the Linux on this machine last night, and again, it won't recognise the modem - I've tried using YaST, and clicking "(no modem detected)" and "configure" as YaST suggested, and I've designated the modem in two different ways - (with some designations with ' tty ' in them - again, as suggested by the HELP or Manual somewhere)  - but  it appears only to recognise its own internal-in-the-software-virtual modem, but not the USB one - but even the virtual modem won't connect with the net.
     I'm sorry my e-mail seems to deconstruct itself before it reaches some of you and you have to cut through scrambled formatting - don't know why that might be ! 
     As I say, there is only ONE manual with Personal 9.1 - I'm heartened (in a weird way) that others have had real trouble with this distro - but I don't have any dough to buy a larger, better one - but one of you has kindly offered to burn me something else.....
     We'll see........I'll take this sheaf of e-mails home and try to make the thing work!
     btw this is a dumb question, so I crave your indulgence - but is it possible the USB ports are just knackered on my (found) machine? I don't get any lights on in the modem - or is that normal ? 
      Thank you all again - I'll get back to you !
                                               Yours "and oblige" - 
                                                                                            - Paul Birchard 

_______________________________________________
No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding.
Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com