Hi,
I recently replaced Windows 2000 with SUSE 10.1 on my HP 4150 Omnibook. I have no sound on this laptop. I remember now that even when I had Win2K on it, I had to fuss with getting the right sound drivers installed. I still have those drivers if they could be used again now with SUSE. So my two questions are: 1) can I use the drivers? 2) If so, can I just plop them into a specific directory? Which one(s)?

First, you can't use Windows sound drivers in Linux. Second, could you post more information on your hardware? Specifically output from the following commands:

lspci
cat /proc/asound/version
head /proc/asound/card0/codec*

This will help in identifying the exact sound chip in your system. From there, I can point you towards the right Linux driver.

Also, if you are comfortable downloading and building drivers yourself, go to alsa-project.org and download the latest version of alsa-driver, alsa-lib, and alsa-utils. Build and install them in that order. Suse has an older alsa version, and there have been a lot of changes since Suse 10.1 was released.

Thanks. Here's the output from the commands you told me to execute:
Output from lspci command:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 03)
00:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1220 (rev 02)
00:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1220 (rev 02)
00:07.0 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicGraph 256AV] (rev 12)
01:00.1 Multimedia audio controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicMedia 256AV Audio] (rev 12)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Xircom Cardbus Ethernet 10/100 (rev 03)

Output from cat/proc/asound/version command:
No such file or directory

Output from head /proc/asound/card0/codec*

head: cannot open `/proc/asound/card0/codec*' for reading: No such file or directory

Ok, from the output of the second and third commands, I can tell audio isn't even loaded. Try loading the alsa drivers. As root, type "alsaconf". That should configure your audio, if there is support for that soundcard. Unfortunately, my main focus is currently on Intel HD Audio based systems, which are much newer.

If alsaconf fails to detect your card, or you still can't get output from "cat /proc/asound/version", type "lspci -s 1:00.1 -vn" and post the output. This will help me to research that chip for support.

i have desktop with intel mainboard 915GAV with builtin sound card of realtech ALC860, i installed redhat linux 9 enterprise edition but there are no sound card detection in that, the result of lspci on my pc is :
--------------------------------------------
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 915G/P/GV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 915G/P/GV PCI Express Root Port (rev 04)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corp. 82915G Express Chipset Family Graphics Controller (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Class 0403: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801 PCI Bridge (rev d3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FR (ICH6/ICH6R) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FW (ICH6/ICH6W) SATA Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
06:01.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905B 100BaseTX [Cyclone] (rev 30)
06:02.0 Ethernet controller: Digital Equipment Corporation DECchip 21142/43 (rev 30)
--------------------------------------------------------
can u help me what to do to detect the sound card , does suse 10 have support to this audio card??

Ok, first, you should really open a new thread if your question isn't hardware and/or distro related to the current thread. Yes, Suse 10 will detect your sound card, as will downloading, building, and installing the latest alsa drivers from alsa-project.org if you really feel attached to that old distro (you'll need the alsa-driver, alsa-lib, and alsa-utils tarballs).

Expecting a distro that is older than a motherboard to fully support that motherboard is a bit unreasonable for any OS. Linux tends to not dwell in the past too long. Try a newer distro, like Suse 10.1 or Mandriva 2007 (my favorate). You'll like the improvements anyways.

If you are new to Linux, I recommend sticking with a proven distro that is desktop and new-user friendly (like the ones I mentioned).