After trying to get my Conexant modem working (unsuccessfully) I was fortunate to pick up an external 'real' modem which will hopefully work ok next time i boot into linux (im staying in windows for now!)
Now I'm trying to get my sound working ... I can really understand why some folks dont move to Linux or wipe Linux totally from their hdd after a few weeks!! i like mandrake, so im keeping it .. might as well develop some software i guess
So, can anyone help with getting my SiS 7012 ac97 onboard soundcard working? I have tried the opensound site, apparently they support this soundcard, but their drivers arent free
Some sites discuss recompiling the kernel but (a) i dont wanna and (b) i dont have the kernel source! (i also dont want to download it ... my isp plan is limited)
Any help is going to be really appreciated ...
Thanks in advance!

You might be out of luck if you don't want to recompile the kernel. I've got a laptop which has the SiS 7012 soundcard and the only way I could get it working was by recompiling the kernel.

If you don't want to download the kernel sources, try buying a Linux Magazine they usually have the kernel sources on their coverdisk. I don't know which ones are available in Australia but over here Linux Format and PC Plus both have the sources. Also check out the disks for Mandrake 9.0 I think there might be vanilla kernel sources on one of the source disks.

When you've got the source you need to apply the ACPI patch to it, and then recompile, I enabled all of the ACPI options before recompiling, and disabled the APM functions. You will need a vanilla kernel though before you apply the patch because it doesn't work with the 2.4.18-6(?)mdk one, this had the effect of getting rid of the nice bootup screen, and breaking Super-Mount completely, but it was already half broke anyway.

Any way go here if you want to see what I tried. Unfortunately the link I posted to a tutorial on recompiling the Mandrake Kernel is broken, as this was the best Step by Step guide I've seen heres an updated link to the tutorial:

http://icculus.org/~dolson/mdkxp/?c=ttrls/mdkkernel

follow it through and it makes things easy. Just make sure that you type a capital i in bzImage , when it tells you to do:

make dep clean bzImage && make -j3 modules

that was my mistake.

Before I had sound problems I'd never recompiled a kernel either, it really is easier than it looks.

Hope these are some help.

Cheers
Amos

Hmmm ... *reconsiders updating & recompiling his kernel* do the modules have to built into the kernel or is this the only/best way of doing it? if the sound drivers can be loaded when Mandrake boots, that'd be ok (im impatient.. i want sound now lol)

I didn't build mine in they're loaded as modules on startup, but I did have to do the following to get it to work (this is a quote from the thread I was posting in when I sorted out my sound card):

I tried compiling them into the kernel but it didn't work, I'm sure there is a way, but I don't know what it is.

Anyway good luck if you do decide to recompile, it took about an hour and a half to two hours to recompile the kernel on my laptop.

Cheers
Amos

Thanks for your help, I will try patching Linux ... btw I managed to find and install the source, cd'ed to the source dir, typed 'make bzImage' then ran lilo to update its config, and got a new boot option (2419-1linus). I'm guessing I just made myself a new kernel
Best of all, this one recognises my usb optical mouse! phew, i can now unplug the second mouse from my pc