Newbie questions

[mdovell at comcast.net]

A long story short I have a laptop I had xp on...1 1/2 years late it has a series of problems so I figure it's really the software than hardware so I switched a half week ago. 
Anyway most things seem to happen well...printer, internet access, wireless internet access.... 

In all respects things are OK but I have a few minor issues 

1) internal microphone I can't seem to find I use my laptop to record some lectures (they turn out ok) I have recording software but it seems to list more recording options than I really have. I guess I could probably bring a small microphone but that might be more obvious (the professor doesn't know and the cable would look odd etc. 

2) flash seems to work but only somewhat. Now I have no problem using firefox or opera. I'm starting to think that this is really dependent on the website itself 

3) Given how easily the printer was recongnized I'm assuming the scanner would be as well as the webcam...would this be a correct assumption? 

4) Pidgin is a bit iffy. First I could get onto yahoo then I couldn't and now I can. However now I have some sort of issue with QQ. From what I understand this whole thing gets updated and the end of the month. What should I expect. 

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In addition to this I am trying to put the OS on a 5 year old pc (it's old..I figure I want to try this first before I shell out money) 
I tried the 64 bit version but it didn't work. I tried the 32 bit version but it seems to get a blank screen ultimatly 
So I went down a version and went with the 32 bit and I get the beat box but I don't know what to do. I'm OK in using a terminal screen as long as I know what to do. 

All in all I would say this is much easier than I thought it would be. Back around 2000 I tried red hat...it partioned the hard drive but failed to install... 

Thanks for any advice 
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