I've got Knoppix installed to my HD, and I've already posted my question on the Knoppix forums: http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27457 To my dismay, NO one ever replied to it. In case, someone has a problem acessing that link, i'll re-post it here:

"I've installed Knoppix v5.1 to my HD as a Beginner-type installation...I happen to have THREE sound cards in my PC: Two PCI, & one on-board (motherboard) sound. Sound works ONLY through the on-board sound. The other two, Audigy 2 ZS & Live! 7.1 do NOT work. I'm hoping the problem is simply a matter of choosing either soundcard as the default output, like you can in Windows. In Windows, i would do this by right-clicking the mixer icon on the taskbar, choose 'Adjust Audio Properties', and in the 'Audio' tab select a soundcard from the 'Default device' from the dialog box. Is there a similiar feature in Knoppix? Is it more involved/complicated then this? I'm pretty sure ALL three sound cards are detected with drivers working properly, because Kmix has a separate mixer for three devices: HDA Intel, CA0106 (Live! 7.1), & Audigy 2 ZS. Also, KinfoCenter lists the three soundcards under Sound. I'm still a relative newbie to Linux, some help on what to do next would be very helpful. "

Thanks in advance.

I cant help you directly as i havent played with it that much, but it would be a good idea to have a look at the docs for alsa, and i know on debian, alsaconf on the command line has saved me a lot of grief in the past.

Hope it helps......

DJ

Create/modify the /etc/modprobe.d/sound file with similar to the below for the contents changing the module names to the order you want the cards used starting with the first (snd-card-0) to last (snd-card-2) then still as root /etc/init.d/alsa reload

Actually, alsaconf has given me some grief. Whenever i used it, a max. of TWO of my sound cards would load. What's more, the Audigy 2 ZS still would NOT work afterward. Although, i finally read that you had to go into alsamixer and turn off digital output. Unfortunately, i couldn't find it because the mixer for the card is HUGE. Anyways, i've re-installed Knoppix, and now i'm back where i started, sort of.

Why for snd-card-2 did you write snd-bt87x instead of snd-CA0106?

Well, there is NO file called sound in the /etc/modprobe.d directory. I searched the whole HD for a file called "sound" the result was two files one in the /etc/sysconfig directory the other is in /etc/sysconfig/2.6.19. Strangely, BOTH files contain this text:

FULLNAME="Creative Labs SB Audigy LS"
DRIVER="snd-ca0106"

There's also 5 directories called sound, four are empty. The other one is in /lib/modules/2.6.19/kernel/sound, it has two files: soundcore.ko & sound_firmware.ko, and several sub-directories. So, i don't have this file, then, right? How would i create this file? Do i just open KWrite type in the above code and save it in /etc/modprobe.d directory? What file type do i save it as?

You just need to as root open an editor like this if using vim or instance vim /etc/modprobe.d/sound put in the lines save the file then reload the alsa.

Ok. I've made the sound file, but i can't get the /etc/init.d/alsa reload string to work. Everytime i try it in a Root shell (also in the Root account) it says: "bash: alsa: command not found." What's wrong here?

That would mean that alsa is not installed check to see if the alsa-base, alsa-utils and alsa-oss packages are installed if not then install them and try the command again.

Whoops, my bad. I finally got alsa reload to work. The trick was to type in the full command at an empty root shell: "/etc/init.d/alsa reload" (withOUT quotes) Sound worked instantly after that! It also works fine in my user account. Thanks a lot! One more question, though, how do i save the current configuration? It seems after i restart the computer everything is back as before. Also, would i have to re-edit the sound file and run alsa reload each time i want to use another sound card? Or is there an easier way? Thanks again.

I thought the command "alsactl store" would save the current settings, but upon restart, everything was STILL back to before. Now, i'm really frustrated, because when i went back to rhe root account and reloaded alsa there is NO sound again. What's going on? Can i undo whatever alsactl store did?

IIRC the beginner style install of knoppix works just like a live-cd but from the hd. Every config file gets rewritten at boot time. You might have better luck installing debian style, or installing plain debian. If you don't want to reinstall, you can dig in the /etc/init.d/ directory for some autoconfig files and customizing them. IMHO installing debian is just easier than that.

I didn't know any of this. Are all live-cd distros like that? What do mean by "autoconfig files and customizing them." Isn't that what i already did? I don't know what just happened, but alsactl store or something completely screwed up everything, so i'll have re-install now. I already tried using the Debian installation of Knoppix. First off, it was a pain just to get my network card recognized. I finally got it to work, but then i couldn't access ANY Drive, CD or otherwise. I kept getting a "feature only available with HAL" error. What on earth does that mean? I'm assuming, if i install plain Debian, i'll still get that "feature only available with HAL" message whenever i try to access a drive, right?

Not necessarily proper Debian behaves differently than Knoppix ever will if your going to reinstall anyways try an Etch install DVD/CD. What is in your machine for hardware anyways? Then we could be able to tell you if everything is supported which it will most likely be if most of it was working with knoppix also any changes made to configuration files in Debian stay in effect during any reboots none of those hacks that knoppix uses to make things work are needed.

Knoppix's "beginner style install" is pretty unique to Knoppix and Knoppix variants. It's sort of a hybrid mode between a "standard" installation and a "poor man's" installation (which is effectively booting an image of the LiveCD). Most LiveCDs don't offer anything quite like Knoppix's beginner style install.

Knoppix's beginner style install is actually what Mr. Knopper probably uses to develop Knoppix. It has the same file structure and behavior as the liveCD, but unlike the liveCD it's on a fully rewriteable file system. Thus, he can modify and tweak the hardware autodetect/autoconfig scripts, and when he's satisfied he can compress it all up into a liveCD version.

What "hacks" are you referring to? Do you mean the one about creating the sound file? Well, i re-installed Knoppix v5.1 Beginner (For the last time) and NOTHING changed i did everything like before, but once i restarted everything gets screwed up. Apparently, the sound file OVERRIDES hard-wired settings that cannot be altered (at least with the sound file). For whatever reason, Knoppix wants to go back to it's default configuration, but the sound file won't let it hence why the sound gets messed up. Is there anyway to stop it from going back to the defaults upon rebooting?

Now, i'm trying to finish installing Debian 4 Etch, but can't install the GRUB bootloader to the partition. Here's what the Debian installer shows for my Hard Drive settings:

IDE 1 master (hda)
#1 pri 32.2 GB B hfs+
#5 log 30.9 GB F ext3 /
#4 pri 1.8 GB F swap
#2 pri 235.2 GB fat32

So, according to this, if i want to install GRUB on the partition where Debian is i'd type in (hd0,5) or dev/hda5, right? I did this, but it does NOT work. I tried (hd0, 1-4) it does NOT work either. Do i have to do something special since it's on a logical partition?

Would i have to 'modify the hardware autodetect/autoconfig scripts' in order to have the Audigy 2 ZS as the default sound output? And just what are hardware autodetect/autoconfig scripts anyways?

You'd have to do either a Debian style install or just install something other than Knoppix (like plain vanilla Debian). The whole point of the beginner's style install is that your hardware gets automatically redetected and reconfigured upon every reboot. If you don't like that functionality, you should use the option designed to NOT automatically redetect and reconfigure hardware upon every reboot (traditional Debian style install).