First steps

Here's how one finds out the version and distribution :

cd /proc
cat version


The result that I get

Linux version 2.6.18-194.11.3.el5 (mockbuild@x86-009.build.bos.redhat.com) (gcc version 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-48)) #1 SMP Mon Aug 23 15:51:38 EDT 2010


Creating a new user and setting the password is as follows, from here

useradd 'username'
passwd 'username'