Now that I have everything is at least appears to be a huge success to my small knowelege I would like at this time to personally thank Alstare for being first person to respond to my dire question in my time of need.. Anyway After I got my KDE up and running it has notified me that I need to get a sound driver. >_< so does this mean that I have everything else and It only needs the sound driver ?

1.Questions CD 4-6 when and how can I use them.
2.Drivers - Is it the same as windows? hey um... Hp i want to hear sound download driver ?
3. I have dual monitors but only 1 monitor displays in Linux
4. Assuming I finish making my Ethernet cables and plug into my router the internet should just work ? like plugging a high speed connection into windows?
5. During the installation there was a question that went something like "Do you want to be able to see your windows partitions through Linux? so I went yes? were is that?" Is it possible for me to listen to music that I have on my windows side?
6. Network sharing / Printers / Is this the same as in windows "respectively"?
7. Downloading ? I know Firefox is compatible with Linux how can i download and install this? I don't know if I made a "program files" equivalent in Linux because I am not sure how.
8. Beryl & whine ? how do i get these to work.. I know its alot to ask but any help i would really be appreciative.

1) Compiling packages from source into a .tgz slackware package is done with what are called buildscripts, they are realy easy to use once you learn, search around the forums here and you will find the answer, or later someone can explain in detail.

2) Specifically what drivers are you needing? for sound I wold log out of KDE and as root type "alsaconf" this will search and if it finds your soundcard it will set it up for you, once it finds and sets it up type "alsamixer" to set volume levels then type "alsactl store" to store your configuraton.

3) I'll let someone with more knowledge field that one

4) if you internet connection usese dhcp then you should be able just type "dhcpcd" as root and be good to go (assuming your ethernet card module is loaded)

5) you have to set the path where you wanted to have your windows partion. I set mine to /winxp but yours will be what ever you set it to. yes once your partition is set correctly you can play .mp3s that are on your windows partition, thats how I do it.

6) setting up your printer is pretty easy depending on your printer. Please let us know what kind you have.

7) firefox comes with slackware 12.1 just type firefox or check internet tab under the KDE start menu.

8) Beryl is outdated, use compiz-fusion, but don't even attempt this yet until you have gotten the first 6 done


What I would do is concentrate on one thing at a time so you don't get overwhelmed. Tell us what you want to get done first that is most important to you and we can go from there.

ok here goes I will be anwsering anything you guys post pretty fast since I am refreshing every few minutes to see if anything changed I did the sound command and I am pretty sure soundblaster is the driver i have been using forever . But I got confused at the "alsamixer" to set volume levels then type "alsactl store" part I think I did it but how can I test the sound I loaded the kde again and it said that "Sound driver still not found " I am trying to do this one step at a time .... After sound I am going to try to get my graghics driver up.

Ok good first lets start with your soundcard.

you can do this from KDE if you want but I still recommend you do it from console as root. You said you have a soundblaster? What version do you have because most of the creative lab soundcards are supported but as of now the X-FI is not supported. So first what exactly is your soundcard?
you can check this if you don't know by using the "lspci" command.

after typing the above listed command on the line "Multimedia audio controller: Creative labs SB Live ! EMU10k1 (rev 08). there was alot of information but I think this is what you were looking for.

yup, that sound card is fully supported in Linux. So like before as root type

alsaconf (it should bring up a window similar to this http://yann.morere.free.fr/toshiba/alsaconf.gif)

it will then search for your soundcard. it should find your soundblaster, keep hitting ok until it says that you have successfully setup your sound card. After that type

alsactl store (this will store your sound configuration)

now I used to have the same card and I would have a problem with the sound being muted. If this happens you open up (in KDE)

kmix

and under the switches tab make sure that analog (if you are using traditional speakers) button is enabled. This step might not be necessary but it was for me back in the day.


Good Luck


You can also check out this page http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/8234/print scroll to the bottom where is says "basic configuration"

ok so here is what happend ... I the screen as before loads up. it loads and searches it finds soundblaster and like 3 other choices I am pretty sure its sound blaster so that is what I selected. then it goes "Ok, sound driver is configured ALSA configurator will prepare the card for playing now" and so on... I press ok.. It then says "Now Alsa is ready to use adjustment of volumes, use your favorite mixer have alot of fun" brings me right back to the command prompt. At this point I think that everything is working.. so i type startx. It loads and says " Useful tips - Ktip" then I see "Informational -artsmessage" , the dialog reads " Sound server informational message: Error while initilizing the sound driver: device : default can't be opened for playback ( no such file or directory) the sound server will continue , using the null output devivce.

ok so you have more than one soundcard in your system, are you sure you are not using the onboard, because if it found one or more soundcard that tells me you probably didn't disable your onboard sound, I don't see why that would cause a problem. try again and after you run alsaconf run alsamixer and adjust the sliders with the up and down keys to set volume levels. Anybody else out there have ideas?

when I do that command all I see is a black screen with yellow and green letters.

Card:Usb device 0x4d:0x8da
Chip: Usb Mixer
View: Playback capture all
Item: Auto gain control [off]

then the random part I see something that looks like this

----
|MM|
----
<Auto gai>

I don't see any volume bar to press up and down.

oh and another note i don't know if it will help or not. I have actually 3 choices for sound drivers. I can type them out if you wish...I just thought it would be the soundblaster because thats what I used in windows.

Ok you see where it says USB device, do you have a usb sound card installed? run alsaconf you can do it from KDE and tell me what 3 soundcards you have installed. Something is definitely up here because the USB thing concerns me.

I am clearly the most newbiest slackware user out there because I just installed this today. I was wondering if this was caused by when I put my usb into the computer to play a movie in attempts to play some type of sound? It was a failure and did not play at all loaded up alot of copies of the thing but they never seem like they quite loaded I tried control alt delete but of course it did nothing. So I tried to logout did not seem to work so I eventually restarted.

Anyway the 3 sound cards

-emu10k1 Creative Labs Sb Live! Emu10k (rev 08)
-intel18x0 Intel Corporation 82801ba/bam ac'97 audio controller (rev 12)
-Legacy Probe Legacy Isa (non -pnp) chips

Ok I really didn't understand that last post, you installed what today slackware or a USB thing? Ok you have two soundcards and one is onboard, just to let you know if you are not using the onboard sound you really should disable it in the bios. Also please post the output of this command

lsmod

BTW I am going to bed probably within the next hour so I may just disappear, just a warning

The only reason I am awake is on the off chance that I may get sound. Its like 6:06 AM ;\ for me I should have been sleeping from yesterday but that is another story. Maybe I did not explain properly.

I installed slackware- today literally hours ago.

After I followed your instructions the first time I thought the sound might work so what I did was I had a usb that had like some music and a movie on it. I put it in the computer thinking that it may work so I could hear something. However it failed miserably so I was wonder if that is what caused the usb device that we see when we are looking for the sound card.

A usb stick drive? I don't think that would cause a problem, but maybe. Ok first if you are not using your onboard sound then lets try disabling it in the bios do you know how to do that?

hmm Tried to enter the bios but for some reason the option does not seem to be there in the startup I think its because Lilo loads so fast...its almost like the split secound I load the computer Lilo shows up asking me to choose windows or linux. advice? F5 , F8 don't seem to take me to were i need to go. Although I thought it was f10 I need to press.

ok I have never experienced so much trouble attempting to go to the bios hmm >.> maybe its a gateway thing because the only other thing I can really go to is "boot device" which I usually see in the bios but instead its simply just in a box by it self.

ok looked a few times and I don't think there is a onboard sound if there is even a option to on this pc but I don't understand why so many sound devives are loading.