well,i think i like this linux stuff,but i am very frustrated with the endless snags in doing ANYTHING.for all of my surround sound speakers etc,i cant play any music at all.none of my players play music.i have system sounds.i did finally get SUSE 9.1 to update and get me past my fetchttmsfonts issue.i have no dvd player working.i dont know how to install Unreal Tournament 2004,03.and i need to get my Nvidia card working.why is everything such a pain to do?simple tasks like installing a game need to be easier.shouldnt have to mount/unmount a cd drive to do this.total BS.then,if lucky enuff to get past that,then cant play until the 3d graphics are fixed.and if i get that far,i wont even be able to hear my game,as it has no sound capability that is enabled.
now i DO like what i see,it looks and feels so "un-micro soft".no Linux will be able to ever unseat microsoft as long as the simple tasks are so difficult for the average user.what i have learned with MS about doing all of the above was hard in some ways,but by now,and knowing all that,and seeing the similar tasks,installing and playing games and driver installs and updates need to be easier.i am not against learning how to do all this,but shame on whoever makes this stuff!!!!if they are listening,it needs to be easier to do the more common installs and updates.my whining aside,i want to address my sound issues.and only that for the moment.my on board,and my soundcard are working fine.the surround sound is fine too.i cant seem to connect the player of my choice,to my soundcard..it will play,and go to cddb,and get that info,and i can see the tracks playing,but i cant hear them.my goal is to get sound and my graphics card doing 3d this week.
please help! LOL
TIA to all

just wait till you get it all up and running
you'll realise how sluggish and clumsy windows is

Suse should have nvidia drivers available online via the yast update thingy. Personally I found Suse to be a bit slow and ugly. A prone to boot hangs and loss of nvidia drivers.
Mandrake is far more friendly and easy to sort out. Though I use Ubuntu mostly these days.

There are a ton of "how to get nvidia drivers working" posts on this site, I know, I've written several of them.

DVD on Suse requires that you download a whole new version of Xine or mplayer as all the bundled players are nobbled to stop them playing dvd's (legal issues) as well needing the libdvdcss library.

I've found that Xine plays audio cd's but the "comes with" cd player doesn't and that that is true for Mandrake, Suse, Ubuntu, Fedora etc etc etc. (This might be due to the hardware in my pc though - I always rip to .ogg anyway - that way I avoid the "tumbledryer preparing for take off" noise the drive makes when spinning.)

Audio Problems So the System sounds play correctly? Have you tried playing an mp3 in xmms? If the mp3 works, that rules out a problem with your Audio drivers. Are you trying to play audio cds or mp3 music? What applications are you using (xmms, xine, mplayer, etc)?

If you are trying to play audio cds, and they seem to play but no sound comes out means there is no analogue cable between your cd-drive and sound card. You need to enable a plugin in xmms for Digital Audio Extraction for CDs. I believe it is called cd-read.

simple tasks like installing a game need to be easier.shouldnt have to mount/unmount a cd drive to do this Once you know what you are doing, mounting cds is logical and drive letters is not logical. The command "mount /mnt/cdrom" is hardly difficult.

It would be easier to help you better if you provide more details of what you have done and what you have tried, and less of a rant.

I hope this helps
--Ian

I tried SuSE 9.0 and it didn't come with mp3 support (legal issue). Once I downloaded the mp3 module for Xmms it worked fine though.

As for the cd-drive, have a look around the forum. I remember reading several posts on getting cds to mount automatically. As a matter of fact in my FC2 I get a cd icon on my desktop as soon as I put a disk in the drive.

Xmms is the player that i want to use.when i use windows all of my hardware works.now my Kmail wont let me send e mail.exact same settings as saturday when it worked,but now it wont let me send.and now i am getting a password prompt to shut my PC down.and the place where i need to add my password,it wont let me type any characters in the box.i guess i wont be worried about my sound card for the moment.now i need to learn how to shut this thing off.i swear..................

Once you know what you are doing, mounting cds is logical and drive letters is not logical. The command "mount /mnt/cdrom" is hardly difficult.


actually ,it is very much difficult.i dont know what i am doing,or even why.and especially how.i want to install unreal tournament 2004,and it is a 5 cd set to install.it seems to me,that putting in the cd's and clicking "yes" is a LOT easier than mounting/unmounting for 5 cd's.why include a cd player in the install,and it needs a plug in?WTF??? that is just plain dumb.would you go to the dr for an appendectomy,and then they do 3/4 of it,and the require you to do the "plug in"?IE,sewing your own incision up?
and for the help with most of this,you are giving the help from a point of view of all that you know about it.not from my point that i know so very little,and DO NOT understand why or how anything on linux does anything.and then there are 10 different sets of sub instructions to every suggestion.depending on the distro.until linux can be installed on a pc,and a basic function of all the pc's hardware and software is working,then windows will be the top selling(YUCK!) system(and i use that term loosely) .
the help i seem to be getting is a few steps above what i need,and is needlessly complicated.ugh!

Slow down, and ask more specific questions rather than getting angry...it makes it easier to help you.

Xmms is the player that i want to use.when i use windows all of my hardware works
Windows media player does digital audio extraction, which means that the audio signal is sent via the IDE bus. To get XMMS to do this, you need to get a plugin. Have a look at xmms though, right click on the xmms window, select options and the Perferences. On my version, there is actually an input plugin called libcdaudio, which can be configured to do digital audio extraction.

and now i am getting a password prompt to shut my PC down
Where are you trying to shut your computer down from? Can you post more information please.

and the place where i need to add my password,it wont let me type any characters in the box
I don't know where you are typing your password, but at a command prompt the characters are not echoed to the screen as stars. Try just typing your password, and see if it is accepted.

now my Kmail wont let me send e mail.exact same settings as saturday when it worked,but now it wont let me send
I don't know what the problem is, but are you sure all the settings are correct. Perhaps try a different email client such as Thunderbird, and see if they work there.

As I said, post more information of exactly what your problems are, and we will try to help
you
--Ian

Originally posted by IBall
Slow down, and ask more specific questions rather than getting angry...it makes it easier to help you.

"Xmms is the player that i want to use.when i use windows all of my hardware works
Windows media player does digital audio extraction, which means that the audio signal is sent via the IDE bus. To get XMMS to do this, you need to get a plugin. Have a look at xmms though, right click on the xmms window, select options and the Perferences. On my version, there is actually an input plugin called libcdaudio, which can be configured to do digital audio extraction."

well,i have tried to adjust my various audio settings,and i am making progress
i did try the plug in you suggested,and it did not let me get any use from my player yet.

" and now i am getting a password prompt to shut my PC down
Where are you trying to shut your computer down from? Can you post more information please."

i click the start button,then logout,then i have an end session pop up,then i click that,and i get the log in/out screen.i did find the root log in will let me shut it down from there.so i am making progress there as well.i will look at my user/groups settings and see what is going on there.

" and the place where i need to add my password,it wont let me type any characters in the box
I don't know where you are typing your password, but at a command prompt the characters are not echoed to the screen as stars. Try just typing your password, and see if it is accepted."


this is included in the password prompt to shut down.but now i can shut it down ,so i can investigate that more too.

" now my Kmail wont let me send e mail.exact same settings as saturday when it worked,but now it wont let me send
I don't know what the problem is, but are you sure all the settings are correct. Perhaps try a different email client such as Thunderbird, and see if they work there."


so Kmail was working fine saturday,and now it doesnt let me send outgoing mail.i wrote all my settings down on a piece of paper,so i would not get them wrong,and they are all set,but i cant send mail.the default port for sending is 25,and i made no changes to any of the settings.


As I said, post more information of exactly what your problems are, and we will try to help
you
--Ian

advice don't stay logged in as root for any longer than you need to be, you can f*** up your system really quick (done it a few times stupid me and rm -r *)lol