I've recently downloaded/reinstalled Slackware 10.1, and am having some minor problems, that I think we can solve.

1) My mouse wont work. Its a USB Logitech 2 button/1 wheel mouse. I've tried almost every configuration possible (auto, imps2, ps/2, microsoft, etc), and yet it wont work. However, my touchpad works.

2) My sound wont work. I've done alsaconfig, I try alsamixer, nothing. I try to play a sound file, nothing.

3) If I want to switch to a new screen, the combo ctrl + alt + arrow key doesnt work. Why?

Thats it for now, help would be grateful, because I really want to learn how to use Linux.

everytime you change the setting of your mouse i believe you have to kill xserver

kill xserver? As in logout/re-start X?

If not then how?

Post your xorg.conf file from /etc/X11
Is hotplug enabled? It may have to be for the USB ports to work

Have you ran alsamixer and unmuted the master volume and the PCM volume?

ctrl alt bakspace kills X it does not switch screens. If you want to switch screens that would be Ctrl-alt-F1 through F6 or 7.

well theres a few ways
1. alt + ctrl + back space - will restart it
2. alt+ctrl + f1 or f2 - this well bring you to a login in screen you login then type killall gdm <- if your running gnome or if kde its killall kdm ( not sure about kdm )

heh hope i helped

Alsamixer wont work. It stats that there is no elms found.

As for my xorg.conf, tell me the simpliest way to paste it into here and I will. As ctrl+c/v wont work off of emacs. (as you can see, i'am truly a newbie).

I have everything working expect two things:

The scroll button on my mouse wont work. And my sound wont work.
When I run alsaconf, I select everything that I know I have. If then I run alsamixer, it says no mixer elems found.

Any suggestions?

Open a console and type cd /etc/X11 , Then type cat xorg.conf | less , Then select all the text in the file and hit copy then paste it here.

This is the mouse section from my xorg.conf file.
Compare this to your own section in your xorg.conf file or you can try adding the
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" to your xorg.conf and then restart X and see if your mousewheel works then.

# **********************************************************************
# Core Pointer's InputDevice section
# **********************************************************************

Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "IMPS/2"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
# Mouse-speed setting for PS/2 mouse