xfree86 4.3.0.1
KDE 3.3
Alsa
Debian Sarge
Kernel 2.6.8-2-386

I'm very new to linux still. I installed debian for the first time about a week ago and have been playing around with it trying to figure out how everything works, so I fully expect at least some of the problems to be really stupid and simple to answer (at least I hope so). Sorry if any of these have been asked before, I searched around (both here and google) as best I could and found no solutions.

fixed - Amarok hiccups, also doesn't like streaming audio - fixed
When I play any song in amarok is hiccups at the very begining. I don't know if this is normal, but yesterday I didn't notice it and today I am. Also, amarok was working just fine with streaming audio yesterday - I spent the day listening to internet radio - but since this morning if I pick a radio station it'll highlight it in the playlist, as normal, but won't play, and if I press play or double click the station again in the playlist amarok freezes completely. This problem is particularly annoying because I haven't changed a thing since it last worked, it just doesn't anymore. I figured removing and reinstalling amarok might fix this, but it didn't work. Maybe if someone could help me in completely removing amarok from my computer I could get it?

edit: forget about the hiccups, they seem to go away (or are at least minor enough that I don't notice them) when I switched to the gstreamer engine (was using xine).

edit 2: changing to gstreamer fixed the streaming audio problem too! Whaddayaknow.

Alsa and ac97 with 5.1 output : Epox 8k3a+ (via chipset, ac97 onboard sound)
This problem I've had since the begining with debian. No matter what I do, I can't get alsa to work through all my speakers, as it should. Last install (I've formatted and started over since the first debian install) I managed to get it working through 4 speakers (front and rear), but not the centre/LFE channels. This time it's stuck to the front speakers and the subwoofer. I've followed directions on the alsaproject website and got nowhere further, tried a couple other solutions I found from google, but got nothing. Would someone with
the same chipset be able to give me a step by step, made-for-morons instructions on setting things up to get 5.1 output?

Open shared network config with samba
This is another really annoying problem, because last install it was a simple matter of setting security to "share" and it was fine, but this time, even set to share connecting to my computer asks for a username and password, and no input works. My network consists of a win2k machine and a winxp pro (sp2) machine. Neither one can access my shared files (I can't access my own shared files through the konqueror browser from the linux computer) I can access my other computers just fine, however.

edit: more specific description of the problem. I've done some playing around with it, and I can share folders just fine, as long as they are located in my /home/xxx/ directory, excluding my desktop. The last time I set this up I was able to share folders on my desktop without a problem, as well as my mounted read-only ntfs driver (/mnt/win/), but neither of those are possible now.

Any help for any of these problems would be greatly appreciated.

Alright - I'm not a Debain person - but I will take a stab.

I'm guessing - for your 5.1 surround issue - that you need to find a better driver for your hardware - or possibly a better program to use it. Are you certain the app you are running has support for 5.1?
Try watching an mpeg in xine. See if you get true surround there.

As far as the Samba config is concerned. You need to edit your /etc/smb.conf file to allow specific access to what you would like to share. Before you go tearin' it up - check out the examples at the bottom. It's a very well commented .conf - and you should find the right combo of options to set it up the way you like.

This goes without saying - but just in case you don't know - restart Samba for your changes to take effect.

Have fun!

Thanks for the reply.

I've figured out samba now. Even though I made sure that permissions were set correctly for my folders, I failed to realize that they were inside of folders with different permissions (hurrr) so now everything is sunshine and santaclause.

Though, I thought I had successfully shared my read-only ntfs drive last time. There's a good chance I just never tried browsing over the network so I didn't realize it. At the moment when I try "chmod 555" it doesn't successfully change permissions. Is there a trick to setting read-only hard drives, or is it possible at all?

For the sound, I was under the impression that alsa was basically the only option available for ac97 drivers. I'm fairly certain that, even when playing a file with 5.1 audio I only get the front speakers, but I can't be certain because trying to play a DVD just now, I realize that my DVD drive isn't recognized as a DVD drive, at least in xine. ( I'll have to add that to my fix-list along with enabling hardware mixing with alsa.)

edit: yeah, playing a DVD with audio specifically set to 5.1 doesn't make a difference for me.