After a long evening of steep learning curve, I've got slackware 11, 2.6.18 up and running mostly OK.

Samba wasn't starting, so I added two lines to /etc/rc.d/rc.local, thus:
smbd -D -s /etc/samba/smb.conf
nmbd -D -s /etc/samba/smb.conf
That seems to be working - but is that the right place to put those commands?

The SCSI driver wasn't starting - modprobe advansys fixed that, until the next start. I edited /etc/rc.d/rc.modules to include a line
/sbin/modprobe advansys
That, too, seems to be working - but is that the right way?

I'm finding the same problems I had with other distros, two years ago, but with far more Google hits with the solutions.

I can't get Midi sound to work with my Creative Emu10k1, although the settings are identical to what I have in Fedora (using 8MBGMSFX.SF2) - is there more to do? The full set of modules seems to be loaded.

for samba, did you try to make /etc/rc.d/rc.samba executable? I think it does the same as those lines you added to rc.local, but with start/stop/restart

sorry, can't help you with the sound card...

Try running 'alsaconf' for the sound card. Also, it may help if you post the output of 'lspci' and 'lsmod'. Also, did you unmute it with 'alsamixer' ?

randomsel - thanks! Yes, it's now executable, and does. A cleaner choice.

H_TeXMeX_H - the sound card works fine with MP3 and WAV files. I've done the alsamixer, alsaconf, and alsactl thing. It's the midi bit that isn't working. I've copied the config settings from my Fedora install, where it works fine. I've also copied across the same 8MBGMSFX.SF2 file and set that as default, but still no midi sound. The mixer is set to full volume on synth, and I can toggle the red and green "lights" on and off (with no effect).

lsmod shows what I think are the correct midi drivers - snd_seq_midi_event and snd_rawmidi. I'll cross-check with Fedora when I boot that next. The lsmod is a very long thing, but the lspci looks like this:

root@SlackwareVin:~# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C693A/694x [Apollo PRO133x] (rev c4)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C598/694x [Apollo MVP3/Pro133x AGP]
00:04.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C596 ISA [Mobile South] (rev 23)
00:04.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 10)
00:04.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 11)
00:04.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C596 Power Management (rev 30)
00:0a.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 07)
00:0a.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! Game Port (rev 07)
00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
00:0c.0 SCSI storage controller: Advanced System Products, Inc ABP940-U / ABP960-U (rev 03)
00:0d.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1225 (rev 01)
00:0d.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1225 (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage 128 RF/SG AGP
root@SlackwareVin:~#

What I'm liking about this distro is that once something's fixed, it stays fixed. I have occasional glitches in most of the others that I've never managed to track down. Dmesg after boot-up shows zero errors, too, which I like.