Jik - Thanks for the link. I may check it out if I can't sort out my issues by asking the right question.
The tutorial is for Fedora Linux , which is a well known distribution. It developed from Red Hat Linux after Red Hat became a commercial product - you pay to have professional technical support (and probably "commercial" licenced software budled in the package). Fedora is the non-commercial version, and you have to sort out your own problems.

The reason I am asking about other speific versions is because they can be run as a bootable Live CD, which allows you to see what it can do and get a feel for it without committing to actually installing on your computer. You can work out if your hardware will support it and any other issues. You can also decide if you like or hate the "feel" of the operating system. For instance, with the three I have been looking at, one automatically makes "Windows" partitions visible on the work space, another has an efficient graphic control interface which will configure so I can get the same result, the third has a different interface which I have yet to find. All three can be made to show Windows Drives, but some make it simpler than others. It can be small factors which make you prefer one over another. Then again, it might be something more complex, such as Jon configuring and running a web server.
As yet, I don't know exactly what I am looking for, or even if I will find much reason (other than curiousity and a dislike of the way Microsoft do things) to move away from Windows (although a lot of people seem to think Vista is a good reason - I don't know, I haven't got it).

Treewind - Yes, I know that setting up wireless connections is dependent on the right combinations. What I mean is that I have set up connections manually on about three PCs running different versions of Windows, for two different wireless routers, and using different USB plugged wireless adaptors plus one inbuilt wireless network card. Despite this, I couldn't tell you if they were set up with WEP, WPA-PSK, 64 or 128 bit password or whatever. I am sure the oldest wireless stick describes it as WEP and the later one as WPA-PSK, but they both work. The linux configuration utility offered these plus a few other options. I just had to find which combination logged into my existing wireless network. With the SUSE-Gnome, all I needed to do was select rom a list of networks detected, and type in my password.
Quack!
GtD.