I have an IBM Thinkpad 600. It runs windows 98SE, which is all set up and works as well as can be expected for windows, and Mandrake Linux (although I don't really like mandrake and am hoping to change to another distro- probably slackware). Most of the linux on laptops sites I have been to say that it is easy to set up alsa. It's supposed to detect the card automatically which makes everything easy, but my card isn't detected at all. The card in the thinkpad is a CS4232/36/37/38 (not sure what the last two numbers are) by Crystal Semiconductors. The alsa howto in the documentation is very confusing and wasn't very helpful, although I think my card is listed as being supported. alsa is on in chkconfig, but from the information I have gathered I think there's some stuff missing.

Can someone talk me through the set up of alsa, PLEASE?

Thanks in advance for any help
Simon

the soundcard your looking to setup is the cs4232 by cirrus logic (Crystal Semiconductors) it works fine i slack under oss kernel drivers, with alsa?

Install the Alsa drivers. I have posted the configuration (as in /etc/modules.conf, or /etc/modutils/alsa if you're using Debian) for my 600E here.
I hope that helps a bit!

Håkan