I just installed Red Hat 9, a fresh install. All seems to be working fine, well besides the fact the my sound blaster live card has a low volume, had it happen under red hat 7.3 and 8, but I didn't really bother to fix it - but does anyone have any suggestions why or how to fix the low volume and I guess not the greatest sound quality?

My main problem is connecting to the internet, I have a cable modem which is connected to a LAN card. While booting up, its detected as eth0, but I think the issue is with the host. When I log in under root, I see the Hostname: dhcp-52-97 in the KDE Control Center as well as in the terminal. I tried editing the eathernet card in Network Device Control. This is what it had:
Status: Active
Device: eth0
Minckname: eth0

I edited the device and got the following under the DNS tab:
Hostname: hostname.localhost

I changed it to:
Hostname: dhcp-52-97 (should I add .localhost at the end?)

then under the Hosts tab I had:
Hosts: 1
Name: hostname.localhost
Aliases: hostname.localhost

I changed it to:
Hosts: 1
Name: dhcp-52-97
Aliases: dhcp-52-97

Then I saved and restarted the network and even the computer itself. But nothing works, gaim, mozila, ect. Gaim states that it cannot connect to the host.

Is there something I'm overlooking, or should I change the host name or what?

Thank you for the help!

Try running as root in a terminal:

redhat-config-network

If it asks you for a host name, the host name is whatever you want to call your box. Mine is called "phrankenstein".

Your /etc/resolv.conf file should also have the following:

domain yourispdomainnamegoeshere
nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
nameserver yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy

You need to put in your ISP's domain name, xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is your Primary DNS IP, and yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy is your Secondary DNS IP. This should make it work.

I've got it working, I reconfigured my network, I left the fields empty and just confuged the eathernet card itself. I'm happy I can use my cable modem under linux again, so much better than windows.

Any suggestions for my sound card?

What exactly is your sound card? Soundblaster Live! 5.1?

You should try to check your module to make sure it's correct:

lsmod

should list all installed modules. It should be using the emu10k1 module. If that's not in the list:

modprobe emu10k1

as root, and then edit your /etc/rc.d/rc.modules file to remove the # sign in front of the line that says

/sbin/modprobe emu10k1

You also need to edit your /etc/modules.conf file to add:

alias sound-slot-0 emu10k1

You'll also need to check the permissions of /dev/dsp and /dev/mixer and possibly /dev/aumix (or /dev/aumixer) so that everyone can read and execute it. You will also need to check the volume levels for your media player and your mixer. Hopefully this will help. Let me know.

I have Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Platnium - It does work, I'm pretty use its that module, but the volume is not as loud as in windows and the sound is not really clear, for example when I press STOP in xmms, the song continues playing for about 2 seconds and then stops.

Is that what you wrote about concern my issue or if I wouldn't have any sound? Thanks for the help!

I was thinking your sound wasn't working properly if at all. I've heard others mention that the XMMS that comes with RedHat pretty much sucks and that if you uninstall it and go with a fresh download from freshmeat.net would yield better results. At this point, the only other recommendation I can think of for your XMMS is to check your volume levels, adjust your equalizer, and possibly check all your plugins to make sure they're enabled.

Okay, I'll give that a try. I wasn't playing around with the sound much that's why I'm asking. I should have taken a better look what's going on first. Thank you for your help!