HD Install :: How does newbie install to old portable?

I'm an old windows (built computers from transistors LONG before integrated circuits...) guy who wants to switch to Linux (DSL) but it seems windows will install on anything, first try, and linux will install on nothing, n'th try.
  So I can erase & repartition the drive--- but reformat how? there just doesn't seem to be a description of how to give an old computer new life. DSL seems to be the answer, so why is installing it a bigger secret than the U.N. budget?
  Obviously I'm being a doofus, but why no clear instructions for the one simple task to which DSL seems ideally suited? Please help! Thanks.
John

I read what seems like the holding-hands procedure I needed, and I'm off on the trail to lobotomize the old W95 portable and turn it into a sexy little DSK baby. Maybe DSL can'r rejuvinate me, but it promises to get the old portable going.
  If it hadn't rained all last month, I was planning to take thg portable to the shooting range and invoke its last Blue Screen of Death, the old fashion way...
Thanks--John
maybe soon to be a cool old newbie, who knows?