Greetings People.
I just joined the community only a few minutes ago. I am totally new to the Linux kernel, but very savy with windows.I am in the process of making the Big change from windows to Linux. So Please assume that I know nothing, but am capable of learning just the same. If anyone can help I would really appreciate it! As I learn, I will teach as many of my friends and family members that I can about this Brave new world of Open Source driven software. Keep in mind I am starting with a test machine until I know what I am doing.
I have an old super 7 motherboard with an intel chipset. It has onboard sound. Intel 82801Ba/Bam AC'97, is how I usually refer to this device. It seems to be partially installed. However when I try to play a media file that uses the sound card, I get no where fast. Ok. I am using Suse Linux 9.3 Professional.Where could I get a device driver for this sound card? Are there kernerls/distributions that are more comapatible with legacy softwear? Once I find the driver updates, how do I do a custom installation for the device mentioned here in question? Answers anyone? Anyone? Bueler???
Thanks!
Gregory

What type of sound file are you trying to play? If it's an .mp3 file, you won't be able to play it out of the box, you'll need to download that separately as part of Novell/SUSE's Multimedia packs.

Thank you for the tip. I solved the problem, if this can help anyone please read on. It turns out I had 3 separate but basic things to do. First I ran YAST Control Center and un-installed then re-installed the sound card drivers using a built in string from Suse. It's one of 3, using a -1 parameter. Next I ran the alsa mixer from the console. I adjusted the default settings which was MUTE ON, and I simply set the volume. Next but not least I got all the basic updates that makes it possible to Play MP3 files properly. These updates can be found easily by using google. I found sound forge to be helpful in this part of the process.
For legacy hardware I have discovered that Slackware rules the roost for breathing new life into ancient computers. Another distribution that I found may be also as useful for old world technology is Lunar Linux. It's based on Slack. From what I can see, these 2 versions of the Kernel require more advanced knowledge for installation and configuration of the Os before, durring and after it has been setup. I'm already in the process of doing my homework before I begin. I think it will be worth it once I do finally get it up and running.