oookay.

li will start from the very beginning,
this is the general procedure to install alsa.

as root......


lsmod
use rmmod to unload ALL sound modules (snd* soundcore and anything else than mentions sound)

find the alsa site on source forge.

download and install the latest alsa-driver, alsa-utils, and alsa-libs (might have got names slightly wrong. if you are unsure, download and install all the lasa packages)

to do this you MUST have your kernel source installed, also the compiler.

ther is a script inside the unzipped alsa-driver. cant remember what its called, look it up, but run it ! it will generate symbolic links in /dev/ that are needed.

now use modprobe to load the alsa driver for your sound card.

now use alsamixer to un-mute all the sound channels.
now use alsactl store to save the sound volumes.
now add 'alsactl restore' to /etc/rc.d/rc.local to auto load volume on bootup

now ALSA sound should work...
you may need to add modprobe (your sound card ALSA driver) to the rc.local to load your driver on bootup automatically.

from my instructions... have you found a step that maybe you forgot to perform ?
(extra steps are needed to install OSS emulation. but a new distro like yours will not need it)

I've been using Linux (Fedora, SUSE, Red Hat, Mandrake, KNOPPIX, Slackware) and I never had to look at a line of programming code. Unless you count bash scripts. So don't worry about learning how to program.

Re: Do I need programming skills to use linux?
 

No, but you'll need your "Computer Hacking Skills" and you must be good with a "Bo Staff".

I would get the hang of an easy distro, then a good one like debian before you worry too much about programing. I have a seperate pc we managed to get for free with debian on it, no gui or anything. I think its quite a good way of doing it because you can learn alot more from doing things in the CLI. I think once you have used the CLI for a while you will want to do somthing nifty that will need to be programed and then you can worry about it.

Oh and by the way, loosing your windows partition and mistakes like that dont meen your stupid. I did things like that over and over again before i got the hang of linux.

I think he got this wroking but not how to get multiple programs to use sound at the same time. Which isn't hard in kde and gnome but looks a bit harder outside of it but the alsawiki does have a walkthrough on that called alsasharing.