i hope all of you can forgive a , but my older K7T Pro mb that would only use a maximum Athlon/Duron 1.4 gig 200 mhz processor DIED, and I replaced it with an ASROCK K7VM2 XP that uses up to an XP 2400 266 mhz.

As such, I am now running an Ahthlon xp 1800
Using Kernel 2.4.21-0.25 mdk Linux and KDE 3.1.3 as my window manager and such.
Oh yes, I am not using Mirosoft Windows AT ALL! I am totally MDk Linux.

On my older mb I used my SB Live! and since it is still better than the on board basic SB 16 I am still trying to use SB Live! on my newer mb, but I keep getting the following error when I enter into Linux.

______________________________________________________________________
Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver.
device: default cannot open for playback (no such file or directory)
The sound server will continue, using the null ouput device.
______________________________________________________________________

Can anyone help me?

sounds like your sound card is not installed at all. when you installed Mandrake did it detect and or test the sound card? Have you disabled any on board sound? can you find the soundblaster module with lsmod?

by the by I'm haveing one helluva time with mdk 9.1. I have a pci modem (made for linux) that works on any other distro try it on but Mandrake will simply not use it. This distro is just not behaving well for me.

To be completely honest with you, yes, mdk saw my sound card but I did not run a test because I did not have any speakers at the time. As such, I also turned off the on board sound to use my SB Live. I did not think I could have both the on board sound and the SB Live! active. I know that did not work in Windows, but now I do not even have windows so I cannot check my damn sound card out until I get it working in here.

I am beginning to think, but truly hope not, that MDK is starting to do something very similar to Microsoft in that they are making the newer OS only functional with newer software and hardware just like Windows XP. While it is fantastic that MDK Linux is free it is still quite a problem if I have to keep buying new more up to date hardware.

So I most certainly hope someone will have a solution for me to fix my SB Live! problem.

have you poked around in mandrake control center? you'll need root rights to do it. from there you will be able to search for and setup the hardware. it sounds like your card just didn't get setup during install. it would be strange for mandrake to just not support SB Live! that is pretty much a staple of Linux users. I really think something just went a little wrong during install. But..... MDK 9.1 just does not like my geforce 4 or my made for linux modem.

Yes I did check in mdk control center and even checked out the kernel in the kde control center.

FIRST: Upon checking the mdk control center, it tells me I have a SB Live! card and am usiing Module: snd-emu10k1.

Then I went o DrakX Services and see that Sound and alsa are both running right from boot.

After the above I went to the information section of KDE Control Center and clicked on Sound, after which I received, "No information available about Soundcard!"

Next: I went to the Sound part of the Control Center, clicked on Sound System and ran a test. As such I then received the same error I get when I first come into Linux;

Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device default can't be opened for playback (no such file or directory)
The sound server will continue using the null output device.

Finally: I went to the kernel and (while not knowing how to work with any of the kernel I did at least discover that I only had to tell the kernel to activate alsa and SB Live! by initiating a green check mark on each of them. I didn't have to do anything else as far as I could tell. However, after activating allso and SB Live! I ran another test of the sound card from the kernel and everything related to alsa and SB Live! totally shut down (shifted to a red X). It appeared that almost everythintg else shut down as well, so I rebooted!

Now I am back at the very point of existence that by all reality makes no sense to me. I am researching HowTo for the sound and any docs I can find, but am so far very confused since I appear to have done everything the info I found tells me to and yet one part of mdk tells me I have the SB Live and all is well, while another part crashes when I try to use it.

SOME PLEASE HELP ME!!