Momma24gr8kids wrote:

How do I find out what distro it is?
I have no idea how

Open a console or terminal and use :

cat /etc/issue

the output I get is :

Debian GNU/Linux squeeze/sid

no doubt yours will be different.

As far as flash player Linux goes :

1. Download the latest flashplayer for Linux from Adobe :
http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz
then close the web browser application (Firefox) Completely .
2. Open a console and extract the install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz archive.
For example; you would use the command : -

tar xvzf /home/zanpaktou/downloads/install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz

if the install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz archive was downloaded to a folder named downloads in user Zanpaktou's home folder.

Now with the archive extracted, the file libflashplayer.so will have been copied into the same folder as the install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz archive.
3. To install the flash player plugin you need to copy the libflashplayer.so file as the root user to a system directory so that firefox can find it; like this :

su -

cp /home/zanpaktou/downloads/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

exit

Now launch the web browser (Probbably firefox) And navigate to :
http://youtube.com/
to see if it works.

Notice that I used the folder /home/zanpaktou/downloads/ in this example.
To find out where you have downloaded install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz to (Because you have forgotten or don't know,) Then use :

find /home/ -name 'install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz' 2>/dev/null

in a console.
In the codes posted in the above example swap /home/zanpaktou/downloads/ for where the find command tells you the install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz archive is.

I'm sorry if that's tech jargon in your book but it's the only sure fire way to get the job done.

If your distribution has a package manager, you could search for flash player in the package manager to install it and avoid following the steps above. Most folks do it that way instead because it means you get automatic updates, usually.

(Also if the laptop has Linpus lite http://www.linpus.com/ Installed; you probably want to wipe it off and install Fedora or Ubuntu instead. Linpus Lite is not a Linux experience I would recommend to anyone.)