I am not sure whether this is quite the right place to post.

I am running SuSE linux 9.0, and have installed all the Midi stuff through
Yast. My impression is that I can set things up for my daughter so that
I can hook up my external midi keyboard throught the in/out sockets
and then play the keyboard, and record and playback through something like
NoteEdit. However, as a typical newbie, I am all at sea as far as getting the
external keyboard recognised.

Is there any step by step guide which even I won't find confusing?

Is this a software or a hardware question? I am not even sure of that.