redhat/yellowdog - newbie???

[Jonathan Metts]

now, this might be a straight forward newbie question, but rightfully
so...i'm a newbie.  i have been playing around with linux off and on for
about 6 months now and am still confused on several issues.  

1) first, i know that ydl is taken from the redhat flavor, but does that
mean that it will allow any rpm made for redhat to work with ydl.i guess
what i am saying is, i am still confused as to what i can and cannot
useunder ydl...when i go and download a new version of mozilla, what do
i need to look for...when i am looking for a flash plugin, what am i
looking for, etc, etc.  installing new programs and updating old ones in
ydl is still a new concept to me...how to do it and do it safely.

2) moving on...mol...i see that mol now supports osx, so how would i go
about upgrading to the new version...the whole dependency issue boggles
my mind.  how are they resolved, by hand?? is there an easier way....i
would love to run osx on mol, but i need some direction.  once again,
back to installing programs.  dependencies scare the hell out of me,
don't know what they are, and how to deal with them when something says
there is a dependency issue.

3) when installing ydl, i chose "developmental workstation" or whatever
it was.  it had (recommended) to the side of it.  i figured the
home/office one would be the reccommended one, but i chose what was
recommended even though i am not a developer of any kind...more of a
simple hobbyist.

4) lastly, i love mac, ppc, and especially my g4, but i wanted a taste
of a true hardcore os....linux.  i like to learn, i like to be able to
get more out of my os, therefore that is why i am giving ydl a shot.  i
just don't want to be scared away from the os...it is easy to install,
straight forward in many regards, and even though i am learning the
command line rapidly, some things still scare me.  i don't want to mess
anything up i can't fix, ex. dependencies, doing something wrong with a
config file, etc.  any problems with mac os 7.5-10.2, i can help, but
for ydl, i will be turning to you guys alot.

much appreciation
jonathan metts