yo... newbie linux-boy here.....

[disclaimer]
sorry if this is the wrong section (got told off by previous moderators for doing such a thing) I know it deals with a Unix topic but the forum title is "UNIX security" and this has **** to do with security...
anyway move it if you want...sorry for any inconvenience
[end deisclaimer]

Ok, I just got my hands on A Debian CD with a 2.1 kernel and as I live In Africa...
faraway country with a lousy 28,8K Net-access I won't spit on it... (french saying...)

All excited that I am, I installed on 1 of my PCs...it boots fine I get the normal "login:" prompt.... log in as root to do all the changes and make sure I have access to everything.

I just configured my local network (hosts file, routing tables) and it works nicely (only tried a few test pings for now...). I don't have much installed...in fact I'm not sure WTF I have.. I understand it's an old distro (with an old kernel ) and since it's on CD (as oppossed to a DVD-based SUSe distro)... space is limited.
But i REALLY find it a "skinny" install.... I have no access to help files.... man pages for progs like route, ifconfig or arp don't exist.
IS that posssible or have I ****ed up my install somewhere.

Now my major and more important question.... I installed from CD-rom but after install, when I boot a shell I can't access my cd-rom. I have a "/cdrom" directory (which is empty) and my /mnt directory is COMPLETLY empty...

I am little newbie w/t linux but generally at ease w/t computers so don't worry about being brief or complicated (save u time detailing and explaining).

By the way, I have a DVD-rom drive and A CD-rewriter.
I know both their "block device" adresses (hda1, hdc and so on). Do i have to load some drivers from somewhere? (Or "modules" under linux...if i understand correctly) How would I go about doing such as thing

Thx for futur answers...

Well to access your cdrom in linux you have to make sure it is mounted. You can do it with the "mount" command.

Oh and the linux/unix section isn't only for security related questions, it's for questions about *nix in general.

Well I tried the mount command...I'ts there (duh!) but all I can do is mount -h
man mount
or
help mount
or
man
doesn't work...I get "Man program not found" whereas I used to get "No manual gpage found for..." on a Mandrake Box if I remember correctly.
I fink somethings wrong with my installation...I'd be better off re-installing alltogether don't u think?

maybe that's the best thing to do and try to get a more up to date version