Newbie with 2 Questions

[David Mangani]

Hello,

	My experience with computers dates back quite a long ways ( TI/99-4A, Atari 800's, Commadore 64's up through DOS and various versions of windows) however I am a green horne with regards to Linux ( RedHat 8.0 in my case ). I have my PC running RH 8.0 just fine and have been able to instal Nvidia drivers for graphics etc... After installing RH8.0 on its own HD I checked RH's web site and found a TON of updates. I was successful in updating my kernel to 2.4.18-24.8.0 using RedHats up2date utility. Next I tried to update the rest of my system again using up2date( was a large download 40MB's over dialup ) All the files downloaded and went all the way to around 96% installed then I recieved an error about expired client authentication token. To make a long story much shorter, It seemed to complete the update process and in fact various logs show the "new" updated packages as being installed however when actually running my system the various apps and programs are in fact the olde!
r versions. I then tried to download a single file ( kppp 3.0.3 I believe) and ran the rpm after downloading. It says the file is already installed yet when I run kppp version 2.1.1 comes up and runs? Any ideas or guidiance would be appreciated. Also almost forgot to mention I then tried to delete kppp 3.0.3 and get a message telling me the package is not installed? What gives? either it is or it isn't installed!
	2nd question involves kppp once again. I prefer the KDE desktop over gnome as it seems more configurable, but am stuck using gnome because kppp will run under kde but seems to lockup my screen and taskbar. Under gnome however it dials, connects and allows me to use all my apps and prgs. I followed general advice regarding this problem posted on another site and it did prevent the root password screen from comming up but the freezing problem remained ( Involved editing a config file from _root.so to _allow ) sorry but doing that last bit from memory. Seems very odd that a kde app freezes up under its own desktop environment yet works properly under another. Seems as though others have experienced this same problem from reading other posts. I Just have yet to read about a solution. Any ideas about this one?
	Thank you for listening and I appologise for the length of this post. Just trying to provide enough info without having alot of knowledge here. Hope to hear back soon. thanks again.

Dave.