PLEASE HELP ME, I'm new to LDAP!!!!

[Gerry Maddock <gerrym@futuremetals.com>]

 I have had allot of trouble trying to get openldap to run on my  RH6.2
box. First I was having problems compiling it, so I went with  the RPM
version. Now I am able to start ldap and verify its listening  when I do
a netstat -a. Now my problem is I can put info into LDAP with  no
complaints, I just cant pull any of the data out. OK, Here is what I
did:
I saved an address book in LDIF format from netscape on my Windows box.
I transferred the file (Futureaddress.ldif) to my linux box. Next  I
issued the following command (WITHOUT LDAP
  RUNNING):
ldif2ldbm -i /tmp/Futureaddress.ldif -f   /etc/openldap/slapd.conf
then I started ldap and tried to conduct searches on the linux box with:

ldapsearch -b 'dn' 'attrs'
and I received the following answer from the linuxbox:
 ldap_search: Bad search filter
If I search using anything else I get:
 ldap_search:No such object
If I try to search from netscape address book on my windows  box
pointing to the ldap server:
Failed to Search due to LDAP error "No such object" (0x20)
Someone Please HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!