does anybody know how to make Gmail make a sound when new email is received?
There is something like that available for Windoze but not for Linux.
I'm using Mandriva 2008. I have contacted Google/Gmail but never got any response.
thanks

Which gmail applet are you using?

I'm not sure if this is a correct answer but this is what I see at the bottom of a Gmail window:
"Gmail view: standard | turn off chat | basic HTML Learn more
©2009 Google - Terms - Privacy Policy - Google Home"

That's what you see in the web browser. There's an applet called KGmailNotifier which sits in your system tray. Not only will you see a mail count you can also configure it to play a sound on new mail.

To install this applet you can either use the package manager or via a konsole as root type: that will install it for you.

Once that is done you can start it from your menu, then right click the icon in the system tray to access the configuration options.

Thanks for your help.
I tried it in a root mode (su, root password, urpmi kgmailnotifier) and I got this response: "no package named kgmailnotifier"
I tried the software manager - it didn't even find this package.
Then I figured - it must be a plugin. I opened Mozilla Firefox and in the add-on section I installed gmail notifier. I selected the sound, for new mail and.. nothing. the gmail is still silent when the new email arrives, when I'm using either Firefox or Galeon..
(I'm using Galeon 2.0.3 as a default browser but that's still Mozilla. The plugins should work for all Mozilla browser, right?)

For some reason I thought I had installed it from the repositories, my mistake. Go here: http://rpmlinux.org/mandriva/2008.1/.../main/release/ and download kgmailnotifier-0.4.0rc2-1mapi2008.1.i586.rpm. Once the file has downloaded you can double click it to launch the installer.

I've downloaded adn installed the RPM. How do I activate it now?
I found a new directory 'kgmailnotifier' in usr/share/apps but it's empty. what am I doing wrong?
thanks

Look in your menu under the Internet section and you should see an icon for kgmailnotifier, click it to start the applet.

If you're using Gmail, then why not use some desktop email clients like Thunderbird or Evolution?