[techtalk] USB Support?

[Shari]

I'm about to begin an installation of Redhat 7.0 on my Dell Laptop (Inspiron 3700).  
I've attempted this before, unsuccessfully with RH 6.0.  Had display problems and 
couldn't get my dsl working.  But I digress.

I've been away from Linux for awhile, and I wouldn't call myself an OS/HW guru by 
any means.  My question is what is the hw support like for USB?  I have a USB CD-RW 
drive, that I can't seem to get running in Win2k.  I haven't seen my model on 
RedHat's HCL site.  

Is this an ill-fated exercise?  Is anyone doing this?

Thanks in advance
Shari