yum config out of date ?

Hi there guys, I'm totally new to linux so any help or suggestion are greatly appreiciated


Cut a long story short, I was renting a server that was running fedora 6 and I was able to install different programs through putty using yum command........


I then changed service providers and this time I was using fedora 4 so once again I went to install vnc-server and other programs with the yum command via putty but kept getting "cannot install, no more mirrors to try"

The tech guy that I contacted via email told me that fedora 4 is oldish and it was possible that a lot of it's links was dead and to update the yum config and that should sort the problem!!!

Thing is, he never told me how to do it and I'm totally new to linux...I'm just reading ebooks on it now and I'm gonna run it on my virtual machine to morrow ......

But can any of u guy's tell me how to update the yum config please??

Also another thing is, when I log into my server via putty, I can't see the fedora desktop, just the "shell command" if thats right...

I tried typing startx but nothing happens and at the minute I'm running my programs through the shell command.....Is there a command that I can enter and I'll see the desktop, and can I exit back to the Shell command only aswell?

I'm new to linux and I find it interesting but very confusing, so any help/suggestions welcome

Thanks
Sandisk