Linux question..

There was a thread about this earlier, but I wanted some clarification...

I'm just starting to learn about Linux. I'm researching the compatibilty of my hardware right now. I heard Red Hat was good for beginners so I'm looking on their website. Just a couple questions..

1. I'm not finding anything about HD's. Are they all supported then?

2. I did see some compatible motherboards.. Does that mean that certain motherboards aren't going to work?

3. What ways (short of writing my own drivers) are available to work around incompatibilites with a particular Linux distribution? In other words, can you download drivers etc or is it not that simple?

4. I want to put it on its own excusive HD, and sometime after Christmas build a whole new computer for it from scratch. Am I going to have a lot of trouble with newer motherboards?(533MHz/Rambus/ATA 133)

Thanks

Most configurations are supported. I'll doubt you'll have any troubles whatsoever with hardware minus the possibility of:

Winmodems
Integrated NICs
Integrated sound

If you have Lucent-based winmodem, you're in luck. Many common winmodems are well supported nowadays.

As for integrated NICs (ethernet card in the mobo), Mandrake didn't like mine, while SuSE loved it. (Downloading nForce drivers from nVidia fixed it for Mandrake though). Most motherboard manufacturers should have Linux drivers available for any weird peripherals they may have on their motherboard.

And I've had bad luck with sound, but once again new drivers from the manufacturer fixed it. SuSE once again was great with my nForce board - I didn't have to download anything.

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/nhf

How about some good eBooks etc to teach and old DOS some new Linux? I. E. Unix Theory 101?