What should I do - what's wrong?

I'm using Mandrake 10.0 with kernel 2.6.3-7 and I haven't succeeded to get the jack audio library to work on my system. I have a pci soundcard with the C-media 8738 chip installed.

I have downloaded the latest tar-ball of 'jack-audio-connection-kit' and run the 3-step installation (./configure ; make ; make install). This I've tried several times (also uninstalled linux a few times and reinstalled it).

I did set up the 'tmpfs' system by adding it to '/etc/fstab' (according to the installation instructions of jack-library).

I admit that I don't understand much of this setup or how to manually start the jack-server. I tried command-line with different attempts like:

'jackd -d alsa -d hw:0'
or like
'jackd -v -d alsa hw:0 -p 512'

I also installed the latest ALSA driver from a tar-ball, and completed this installation with
cd src/pcm/ext
make jack
make install-jack

When I start the program 'Hydrogen' (drum machine), I get the error message: 'Error starting audio driver'. This program preferrably uses the jack-library; but when I choose the alsa-driver in Hydrogen audio-setup - the program works.

But I need to use the jack-library - since I'm gonna use it for multitrack recording in either 'Ardour' or 'Rosegarden' (these HAVE TO use jack).

I haven't a clue what to do, and I'm by far NOT confident in configuring the linux system or configuration files.

I HAVE read the documentations that's listed in the jack web-site. Still, I don't get it - I've had a hard time to understand all the info about this!

Does anyone know how to handle and solve this problem with jack-library?
Thanks for your understanding and patience.

- Ingar