Hello,

Installing Bind is not complex. First of all, you'll want to download an RPM for Bind:

http://penguinman.com/rh9/bind-9.2.3-1.i386.rpm

Once it's finished downloading, you can install it (as root):

Then you can edit named.conf to configure Bind.

See here for more information:
http://www.linuxhelp.net/guides/bind/

what is RPM -Uvh bind -9.2.3-1.i386.rpm ?

It's a command you enter at the command prompt to install the rpm file that you've downloaded.

Additionally, you'll need to provide the complete path to the RPM and gain root access, so the final command that you enter might be like:
Replace /home/you/Desktop with the path to the rpm (where your web browser saved it).

can someone explain the whole conecpt of domains?

On a local area network, when a computer wants to view something other than an IP address, it first looks in its internal DNS routing table. On Linux, this is usually in /etc/resolv.conf. If it can't find it in there, it asks the local DNS server (whose IP address is in its config) for the IP address of this name that it's trying to find. The DNS server than returns the IP address (if it can be found) to the computer.

When you enter a domain into your address bar, the first thing that happens when you press return is your browser sends a lookup domain request to your DNS server.

DNS servers are servers that contain tables of domains and their IP address that they point to, and these DNS servers are all around the world. They all contain the same data, so it doesn't matter which one you use. Usually, your ISP has a DNS server, so that is usually the one your browser uses to lookup domains, as it's the closest.

When the DNS server recieves the request, it looks up in its domain table, finds the IP address, and sends this back to your computer. Now that your browser has this information, it can then communicate directly with the web server to get the website.

so if i wanted to point say, www.ben.net to my fixed IP adress, what would i need to do?

also, is thier any benefit of having domains on a linux LAN as opposed to just hostnames

On your local DNS server, you would need to edit the /etc/named/named.your.domain and /etc/named.conf and add an entry pointing www.ben.net to your fixed IP address. If you don't know how to do this, try looking here:
http://www.xenocafe.com/tutorials/dn...dhat-part2.php

Domains are useful as you can use an entire domain to represent your LAN, and each individual computer can use a subdomain. Or, if you have a larger computer, you can use subdomains for subnetworks inside your LAN. Simply having hostnames works, but it's not as easy to see which network and computer it points to.