Novice question about laptops and wireless

[Virden, Larry W.]

I've inherited a really old Dell laptop, on which is installed a really
old version of Redhat - I believe it is redhat 4. The slowness of the
machine, the limited amount of disk space, etc. probably has me locked
into staying at this version.

The laptop does have a wireless card. I've never used a linux laptop
before, nor ever used wi-fi, so I'm uncertain what, if anything, I need
to do to go from booting the system to being able to actually make use
of the local library's free wi-fi network to access the internet.

Does anyone have any pointers to useful guides, HOWTOs, books, or
whatever that would help someone as new to all of this as I?

I understand that you don't know anything about the library system. If I
have pointers to howtos, etc., then perhaps I can decypher the questions
to ask to move forward.

Thanks.

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