soundblaster live
 

I am a completley "stupid" noob.

Now that that's out of the way...

I am looking for a way to get my old soundblaster live! card to work in my Debian KDE machine and any website I find just confuses the snot out of me. (udate kernal this, and mount somethin' yada yada, insert this string here or there or everywhere):scratch:

I just want to download a driver with my xp machine unzip it or whatever I have to do so I can burn it to a cdr drop it in my KDE system and run it. It doesn't seem like it should be that hard.:confused:

maybee somebody can e-mail me a driver file or send it to me via AIM file transfer, I don't know.

I also need a driver for my nic. it's a D-link DL 10038-d
It's not the wireles one or nothin, just a normal old nic.

I don't know if I'm asking too much or stepping on forbidden territory or whatever, but if I am, I'm sorry. I just need help.:Pengy:

Strange that it isn't auto-detected and configured on your system.

Open an x terminal and give these commands:Do you see emu10k1 mentioned? If not, that is the module you need.

I have non of those listed.
All that shows up is...
nls_cpd437
af_packet

It should have been available upon install. Have you looked for it with Synaptic, the front end to apt-get?

APT HOWTO

I'm sorry, man, but I honestly have no clue as to what you are talking about. This is so frustrating, I swear, I'm about to use my iso disks for target practice and load win 98 back on thst stupid thing. This whole file system is so different, it almost seems retarded to me. Maybee I'm doomed to spend the rest of my days in chains in Microsuck's basement.

You certainly picked a non-newbie distro for a beginner, didn't you?

After you learn Linux, Windows seems very retarded in it's filesystem while Linux is sensible and easy to understand.

Perhaps a re-install would be wise as it seems you didn't research your hardware first.

Here are some links that may help ease the learning curve.

# Linux Distribution links:
A Beginner's Guide to Choosing a Linux Distribution
Reasons to Choose or Not Choose Linux
LWN distro list
elinux Linux Distributions

# Basic Linux filesystem structure
Directory Navigation Help File
Filesystems, Directories, and Devices Help File

# Pre-installation guides
GNU/Linux pre-installation checklist
The Pre-Installation Help File

# Partitioning
Linux Partition HOWTO
Rute - Partitions, File Systems, Formatting, Mounting
Proper Filesystem Layout

The table of equivalents, replacements, analogs of Windows software in Linux
# Find software here
Freshmeat
Sourceforge
rpmfind

Debain is great if you know what you are doing in LINUX. Windows users will have a very hard time learning it because there is no GUI tools to config the system. Everything is done by command line. Windows users trying LINUX for the first time may want to use either SUSE, Mandrake, or Redhat (aka Fedora).

In LINUX, modules are drivers. They can be either compiled in the kernel or as modules, so downloading modules for your NIC and trying to use the drivers will not work. All you do is log in as root and type "modprobe module_name". My modules that modprobe can load is located in /lib/modules/2.4.19-16mdk/kernel/drivers/net. Your system will be different.

You can use Knoppix to get an idea what modules will work with your system. Knoppix is a LIVE LINUX CD. No installation required. Its a great CD if Windows does not work or your hard drive crashed and the computer you have is the only one.

A good site for newbies or as a reference go to http://www.justlinux.com
Then click on the library link.

BTW, do not run GUI as root.

Don't worry, debian is easy!
 

Maybe there are not so many graphical interfaces,
after a while playing around with debian you probably find out why.

To your soundcard:
You don't have to download a driver and normally you don't have
to configure your kernel to install hardware.
The drivers, called modules with GNU/Linux,
are already on your harddisk!!!

So, you just have to load a module for your soundcard!!!
Hardware gets installed as root!!
Not as a user!!

So open a shell (called xterm, bash, xterminal ...)
Write:
su (press enter)
[If you want to know, what a command does, just enter "man command"
in your shell, for example:
man su (enter!)]

Enter the password for root, press enter, here you are!

For your soundcard you want to install a module!!

So write:

modconf

and press enter!

Now you are in the module-config-center of debian.

Go to:

kernel/drivers/sound/emu10k1 (This is the module for the soundblaster live!)

press enter.

Answer the question, if you want to install the module with "yes"
you don't need to make an entry in the additional parameters,
just go ahead
and after a while it says:
Module installed or something similar.

Now you can hear sound as root!

Normally you also want to hear music as user.

For that, your user has to be in the group "disk"
You can check, if you are already in this group, in the file:

/etc/group
(/etc/ is the directory, where you find all your configfiles etc.)

Do in your shell:
less /etc/group (enter!)
so you can have a look at this file easily!

If you are not in this group, there is a command,
for doing this in the shell as root:

adduser username disk

For recording and other stuff related to sound you should add
the user also to the group "audio with:

adduser username audio

Username is the name of your directory, you work as a user.
All userdirectories are located in the directory:
/home/

Ok, maybe you know now how to install your nic!

Call modconf as root and install the appropriate module!

If you don't know, which module you need,
maybe google.com helps.
Why not enter this there:

D-link DL 10038-d linux

I found these links:

www.etherboot.org/ db/nics.php?show=tech_data&vendor=D-Link

There is also another way, to find out more of your hardware:

Enter in the shell:

lspci (enter!)

and you will get some information.

Ok, hope this is some help,

and just try one feature of the shell:

Enter:

modc and than press the TAB-Key.

Nice, isnt it?

And if you are not shure, which module to install,
try, if it doesnt work, modconf will tell you!

toooo

Apt-get is Debian's package manager and the link I posted should have helped explain.

Try opening an x terminal and give these commands:

su -

<answer prompt with root password>

apt-get install synaptic

I think it will probably ask for a CD (I don't use Debian, but I assume it works as it does similar to Fedora's apt4rpm) and when inserted, it will install the gui for your software manager.

Run it by giving this command or making a launcher with this command:

synaptic

A pointy-clicky (gui windows thing) software manager should show up allowing you to see what is installed/can be installed/upgraded, etc.

tooooo,
In modconf there is nothing for sound. just nic, filesystems, cdrom devices, and others. under others, there is nothing for sound either. although I must say I was able to comprehend your advice. I was able to install the module for my nic there though, but it still doesn't work. I don't know.
Pipper,when trying your suggestion, it told me that synaptic didn't exist. It didn't ask for a cd or nothing though.

Strange, but we will try it another way
 

There is another way to configure this soundcard,
although it is very strange, that there are no soundmodules in modconf.
Debian comes with a soundconfig-tool:
sndconfig
Call it as root in a shell.

If it doesn exist, install it as root with the following call:
apt-get install sndconfig

This tool automatically installs the right module for this soundcard,
if this module exists on your system.

To your nic:
What did your modconf say, did it install the module without problems?
Please, if possible be a bit more precise with your descriptions of your problems/doings ...

If the nic-module installed without problem, you still have to configure it.
It needs a IP-Number:
for that, have a look at "ifconfig"
So call man ifconfig for further information.

If you want to give your nic a static ip,
do as root in the shell something like:

ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.2

Here you give your first nic (eth0)
the ip 192.168.0.2
The ip and your nic-number depends on your systemconfiguration.

If you want to get an ip dynamically from a dhcp-server (router, ..),
use a program like:
dhclient
as root,

Good look,

tooooo