[CLUE-Talk] Newbie looking for Linux (Mandrake?) help

[Jim Hodgers]

I need help!!

I am a relative newcomer to Linux. I live in Buena Vista, Colorado, and there 
are no Linux guru's around to help me. I am a Visual Basic programmer who 
wanted to see what the "buzz" about Linux was about. I made another system as 
follows:
Asus P5 with K6-2 350 and 64Megs
6.4 G Hard drive
40X CDROM
3.5" floppy
External Modem

I got disks for Mandrake 7.2 and started to install.The first CDROM installed 
fine but when it asked for the second disk, it would not recognise it. The 
install finished just fine without the second disk and everything seems to 
work, including  DUN and sound. However I can't access the CD. I would get 
"You do not have permission for this device" from root. Following a 
suggestion on the Mandrake user site, I changed the fstab from
/mnt/cdrom /mnt/cdrom supermount fs=iso9660,dev=/dev/cdrom 0 0
to
/mnt/cdrom /mnt/cdrom auto user,noauto,exec,ro,dev=/dev/cdrom 0 0
and when I try to mount with "mount /mnt/cdom" I get 
"/dev/cdrom is not a block device". 
CD Player indicates the disk is ejected all the time. I know the drive works 
because I installed Linux from it!! 

I could sure use some knowledgeable advise!!

Jim (Wish you guys were closer) Hodgers