my experience with linux so far is purely pain. I feel so useless when I cant even install a ******* sound driver. Should I stick with Windows and come to Linux untill I get better programming skills?

Damn I should have studied Computer Science instead of Philosophy.

you dont need programming skills (though C, C++ and Perl do help)
try getting a good book or find a general tutorial on basic shell commands and administrating linux
then just read through the newbie section on this forum

knowing basic c (the syntax most importantly, not really knowing how to do much programing is needed) makes leanring gnu/linux a lot easyer, as a lot of programs either assume you know some, or are molded around a language, so knowing that language can help understand what/why sometimes happen

a basic knowledge of programing is much preferred (but not required), tho you'll still have to learn how to use the commands

and yes, knowing basic bash is greatly important, as well as knowing what "regular expressions" are if you want to use sed (i think its best just to find a web page telling you this and bookmark it, as i dout you'll use sed that much, but when you do its usually a great time saver)

I am a newbie too. I am working through it like this. I planned to dual boot but messed up and ended up replacing windows with linux. To show you how smart I am. Well I'm not a person to go back in life i move forward. Here are some web sites that in trying to learn how to install a dvd player have helped me learn some basic commands.
http://home.bredband.no/gaulyk/java/...20Installation
this first one is to install Java plug ins. I learned how to link files to my mozilla without copying them over with the ls -s command. I also learned how to locate files with ls $(locate (filename))
http://linux.org.mt/article/terminal
this is a beginners site
should be really helpfull.
last but not least I have some books on pdf file as soon as I figure how to get them out of my old cds which i burned on windows and have not tested to see if i can get them out in linux. Well anyways I will try to get them out tonight so if you want them I can send them to you. let me know

You might want to check out this site:
http://linuxsurvival.com/index.php?m...ceid=1&meid=-1
It will give you some basics in noob language. (which is what I am)

Once you get the feel of what the commands are all about, check out this site:
http://www.justlinux.com/nhf/
which has a list of general commands (command reference) and some distribution specific instructions for your version.

Good luck and hang in there!

Thank you guys. I really needed those.

This link refers to a 'Linux Cookbook' by No Starch Press that you will probably enjoy. It has examples on performing various tasks in linux, rather than concentrating on linux administration and installation as other books do.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/ljpress/

Some of the examples are done from the shell, but are easy to learn. Mainly, it can keep you from overlooking useful programs on your linux box.

it is true that nobody needs programming skills to install a driver on Win.

To compile a linux driver, you will not be able to use point and click - you must be familiar with command line operation (like DOS, if you have ever used it).

A little bit of programming is pretty much useless for linux driver's when compiling is required. The only requirement is that the gcc and make packages are installed. Any decent linux driver that has to be compiled will have a README or INSTALL files(s) which describe how you compile and install. The most typical sequence of commands is:
./configure
make
make install
If these don't work "out of the box", you most likely won't end up with a driver.

you dont need any programming experiance or technical knoledg.... unless of course somthing goes wrong, in this case, you forgot to check hardware compatability of the distro you chose.

installing a sound card is quite easy.
and there are many different ways of doing it.

anyway.... yould you like help installing your sound card driver ?
if so...

what distro are you using ?
what sound card do you have installed ?
and what kernel version ?

I am using Mandrake 10.
CMI9739A onboard sound chip and Kernel 2.6.X
Latest driver from Cmedia was 0.41 ,which DOES NOT install.
I am using the newest ALSA driver and Linux loaded the Intel_8X0 driver for my chip which does not work very well. Only one program can use audio at one time. The SB live I've stolen from my brother's computer works perfectly but the problem is that my computer is a book PC (a very small and thin computer) and the SB live does not fit. (now I am having my computer case opened) Plus I want to be able to use the front panels, which connect to the motherboard only.

I have tried everything and nothing works. Guess I should give up and switch back to windows and try linux on another computer.

I've found this to be standard operation. If you're actually getting sound (and the quality is okay) then it's working! I think I saw somewhere on the net a HOWTO on changing it so the soundcard can be used by mulitple programs at once (duplex? multiplex? something like that). It seems like getting it to do that is actually a large step (we get spoiled using windows, which sets it up automatically and makes you think multiple sounds at one time is what sound cards are made to do!)

I'll let you do the research on your own, you'll learn the most that way!

Usually going to google and typing in the main words of what you want to do (i.e. "HOWTO multiple sounds same time mandrake") will bring up some useful stuff.

I would say No, you do not need to know how to program in order to use Linux. You do need to be comfortable using the command line interface (aka CLI), which is in text mode rather than a fancy GUI with a bunch of icons to click on and so forth, and you do need to be willing to experiment and do some reading/learning in order to take full advantage of Linux.

It's well worth the effort though. Sure, in the early days it might be a little frustrating to work with Linux, but that's mainly just because it's unfamiliar. Give it a chance, and I think you'll quickly discover that it is far superior to "brand W", but that's just my 2 cents. Good luck with it, and stick with it. -- J.W.

I tried Esound. Didnt work.

did you configure the programs that use sound to use esound?

Before I started with Linux, the only program I ever wrote was:
10 print "Hello"
20 goto 10
(Those were the days )

And I've just recently finished installing Linux From Scratch, which involves compiling and installing every single application you intend to use on your system. Just got X windows installed and running last night, as a matter of fact... after re-compiling the kernel to make my graphics card work better.

So I'd say nope, you don't need any programming ability to start using Linux.

What you DO need is a willingness to LEARN. Google, tldp.org, and this forum, are all your very good friends. And so are O'Reilly books, and a whole host of others...