Background:
While I am an experienced Windows user, I am not a programmer and am completely new to Linux. My main holdup to migrating to (and learning how to use) Linux is this problem.

Relevant Hardware Info:
Dell Dimension 8100 - Pentium 4 1.8GHz, 512MB RDRAM
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz DSP Sound Card (PCI)
Altec Lansing 4.1 surround sound speakers (two front, two satellites, subwoofer)

The Problem:
On RedHat 8, I get no sound whatsoever (sound card not recognised).
On Suse 9 LE, the card is recognised, but only the front two speakers work.

What I Need:
VERY DUMBED-DOWN directions to get all 4.1 speakers functioning properly. I'd prefer Suse 9 (does a great job detecting my hardware), but I'm not tied to it.

In Redhat you need to compile alsa and add a few lines in the modules.conf. Next start up the alsa scripts in /etc/init.d .

For both SUSE and Redhat you need to edit or create asound.conf and put in under /etc or in the user's directory. Putting the asound.conf under /etc will make it global for every program that uses ALSA. The asound.conf is where you setup your channels.

Sorry I can help you with asound.conf.

Unfortunately, that means absolutely nothing to me - as I said, I'm totally new to Linux, and I'm not a programmer or hacker of any kind. Without simple step-by-step instructions, you might as well just string random words together in various languages.

Have you visited ALSA site. If you do not the address go to
http://www.alsa-project.org

Information about some everyday linux stuff go to
http://www.justlinux.com

Deep information about linux go to
http://www.tldp.org

Read very, very carefully on those sites.