Try to run (as root)

sndconfig

Unless you have a very fancy sound card, this will work for you. At the end of the setup, Linus says how he pronounces "Linux". (On RedHat, "sndconfig" can be also run via the "setup" utility--type setup . )

You may want to try your soundcard and cdrom using a command line cdplayer. Put a music CD to your CDROM and type:

cdplay

If this does not work, maybe you don't have /dev/cdrom? Check if you can mount a data CD as root and create the device /dev/cdrom by linking it to the appropriate drive (most likely /dev/hdb), for example:

ln -s /dev/hdb /dev/cdrom

If cdplay works for root, but does not work for a regular user, you may need to give (as root) everybody the permissions to read and write to the the file /dev/cdrom or review the permissions on /mnt/cdrom, or modify /etc/fstab as explained earlier, e.g.:

chmod 666 /dev/cdrom

(The directory /dev is where all your devices appear as files.)

To play third song, try:

cdplay play 3

You can also use the command cdp for rudimentary command line interface to cdplay, but perhaps you prefer the interfaces available from under X-windows (e.g., from KDE "K" menu, choose: Multimedia-"CD Player").

To stop the music either press the button on your CDROM or issue one of these commands:

eject
cdplay stop

Troubleshooting. If you are having problems with soundcard, manual installation is an option. Here is my setup for a SoundBlaster16-compatibile sound card that persistently played at half speed because it was misdetected. The resource to read turned out to be: /usr/src/linux-xxx/Documentation/sound (hope you installed the kernel source code, so you have the Documentation). The file to edit is /etc/modules.conf. The critical line in this file (after manual edition) is:

options sb esstype=1688 io=0x220 irq=5 dma=0 dma16=5 mpu_io=0x330

The change that I had to make was to insert the "esstype=" option. After modification, the best to test your setup is to cold reboot (power down, and then recycle the power).

How do I setup my printer?

From the GUI login screen, logon as root. If X-windows is not running, start an X-windows session by typing (as root):

startx

Read here if your X-windows is not set up properly yet.

Start an X-terminal (perhaps by pressing the proper button) and type in it:

printtool &

This program does a complete printer setup, you just have to fill up the information about your type of printer and where it is hooked up.

Specifying the proper printer port is the most important part. If you don't know which one is yours try:
on RedHat 5.2: lp1 (this is the first parallel port on RH5.2 ) or lp2 (this is the second parallel port on RH5.2) or lp3 (this is the third parallel port on RH5.2); on RedHat 6.0 (or later): lp0 (this is the first parallel port on RH6.x) or lp1 (this is the second parallel port on RH6.x) or lp2 (this is the third parallel port on RH6.x). After upgrading from RH5.2 to 6.0, the printing stopped working because the name of the parallel ports changed. I had to re-run the printool and adjust the port. The numbering of ports changed to bring it in line with numbering of other devices, which always starts from 0.

Try printing an ASCII test-page straight to the port. Only when this works set up the bells and whistles.

If you are setting up a remote printer, make sure that your machine has the permission to use the remote printer. The permissions are set in the file /etc/hosts.lpd (more secure) or /etc/hosts.equiv (less secure) on the machine to which the printer is attached. These files simply list the names of the remote computers that can use a local printer, one computer name per line. Mine looks like this:

hacker
mars

The file /etc/hosts.lpd did not exist on my system, so I created it.

For quick information about the printers on your machine, you may want to view the file /etc/printcap :

cd /etc/
cat printcap

Here is the meaning of some codes that I see in my /etc/printcap:

The printer is controlled using the command lpc (as root). Type "?" to see the options. This program is notorious for its peculiarities, so don't get discouraged easily. The printer queue can be viewed with lpq and cleaned up with lprm , both of which work for a user (not only root). You can print from the command line using the command lpr. Under KDE, you can control the printer queue from the program available under the "K-button"-"Utilities"-"Printer Queue".

Printer and soundcard

Word Perfect 8 does not have a driver for my printer

If you installed your printer in KDE using the printtool and it had a driver which works fine, set up Word Perfect to print using the "passthru postscript" driver.

Where are the setup and configuration files?

Here is a listing of some system-wide configuration files that I use most often:

SHELL DEFAULTS
/etc/bashrc - system-wide default functions and aliases for the bash shell
/etc/profile - system-wide defaults for bash shell, including system-wide environment variables.

ADMINISTRATIVE SETTINGS
/etc/passwd - contains passwords and other information concerning users who are registered to use the system. It can be modified by root directly, but it is preferable to use a configuration utility such as passwd to make the changes. A corrupt /etc/passwd file can easily render a Linux box unusable.
/etc/shadow - contains "shadow" information for the passwd file, i.e., the information pieces which "the world" does not have permission to read.
/etc/group - similar to /etc/passwd but for groups.
/etc/crontab - setup for "cron", which runs commands periodically (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, etc.).
/etc/inittab - runs different programs and processes on startup.
/etc/issue - message that accompanies login prompt. This is often overwitten by the rc.local script.
/etc/issue.net - same as above, but used when login is attempted over the network.
/etc/motd - "message of the day" file, displayed after a user logs in.
/etc/rc.d/rc.local - the last script to execute on the system bootup. I put the commands which customize my local machine at the end of this file. It works like DOS "autoexec.bat".

NETWORK CONFIGURATION
/etc/hosts - contains a list of host names and absolute IP addresses.
/etc/hosts.allow - hosts allowed to access Internet services
/etc/hosts.deny - hosts forbidden to access Internet services
/etc/resolv.conf - setups for a list of domain name servers used by the local machine
/etc/inetd.conf - configures the inetd daemon to tell it what TCP/IP services your machine should run.
/etc/exports - specifies hosts to which file systems can be exported using NFS (network file system). man exports contains information on how to set up this file for remote users.

HARDWARE CONFIGURATION
/etc/conf.modules - setup for the linux kernel modules. Modules are like "device drivers" under MS Windows or DOS.
/etc/fstab - contains information on partitions and filesystems used by system to mount different partitions and devices on the directory tree.
/etc/mtab - shows currently mounted devices and partitions and their status.
/etc/lilo.conf - configuration file for lilo boot loader.
/etc/printcap - setup for printers.
/etc/termcap - ASCII database defining the capabilities and characteristics of different consoles, terminals, and printers. You typically don't want to change those.
/etc/X11/XF86Config - X configuration file. For XFree version 4.xx, the file is /etc/X11/XF86Config-4.

What are all the device files?

ls -l /dev/ttyS3

on my system produces the following output:

crwxr-xr-x 1 root tty 4, 67 Mar 13 22:59 ttyS3

The initial "c" indicates a character device. "b" would mean "block device", "p"=FIFO device, "u"=unbuffered character device, "d"=directory, "l"=symbolic link. The numbers "4, 67" mean that the device major number is 4 and the minor number is 67.

Here is a list of some common devices:

/dev/ttyS0 - the first serial port. The mouse is typically connected here.
/dev/ttyS1 - the second serial port. This may well be the device to which your modem is connected.
/dev/modem - the serial modem. In the typical case, a symbolic link to /dev/ttyS1, /dev/ttyS2, /dev/ttyS3 or /dev/ttyS0, depending to which serial port your modem is connected.
/dev/mouse - mouse. In the typical case, a symbolic link to /dev/ttyS0 or similar (see above), depending to which serial port your mouse is connected.
/dev/lp0 - printer on the first parallel port
/dev/lp1 - printer on the second parallel port
/dev/fd0 - first floppy disk drive
/dev/fd0H1440 - driver for the first floppy drive in high density mode. Generally, this is invoked when formatting a floppy drive for a particular density. Slackware also comes with drivers that allow for formatting a 3.5" diskette with up to 1.7MB of space. Red Hat and Mandrake do not contain these device driver files by default.
/dev/fd1 - second floppy disk drive.
/dev/hda - first IDE hard drive (whole drive).
/dev/hdb - second IDE hard drive (whole drive).
/dev/hdc - third IDE drive (whole drive). On many machines, the IDE cdrom drive is attached here.
/dev/cdrom - typically, a symbolic link to the appropriate hard drive, e.g. /dev/hdc or /dev/hdb.
/dev/hda1 - the first partition on the first IDE hard drive. /dev/hda2 is the second partion on the first IDE hard drive. As one could guess, /dev/hdd8 would be the eight partition on the fourth IDE hard drive.
/dev/tty1 - the first text console
/dev/dsp - digital audio, i.e., the sound card. "dsp" stands for "digital signal processing".
/dev/sndstat - do cat /dev/sndstat to learn about the status of your sound devices.
/dev/null - used when you want to send output into oblivion.
/dev/random - used to read pseudo-random numbers.

For more info try:
less /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt
man MAKEDEV

As explained in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.text, I may need to create some symbolic links to device files locally to configure my system. This is merely a tabulation of existing practice, and does not constitute a recommendation. However, if the links exist, they should have the following uses:

/dev/mouse Current mouse port***
/dev/tape Current tape device
/dev/cdrom Current CD-ROM device***
/dev/cdwriter Current CD-writer device
/dev/scanner Current scanner device
/dev/modem Current dialout (modem) port***
/dev/root Current root filesystem
/dev/swap Current swap device

The *** mark the symbolic links that are surely present on my Mandrake system. For example, if having problems with mouse I would do something like (as root):
ls -l /dev/mouse
[see if the mouse device is present and where it points]
ln -s /dev/ttyS0 /dev/mouse

For SCSI (and ATAPI) devices, /dev/tape and /dev/cdrom should point to the ``cooked'' devices (/dev/st* and /dev/sr*, respectively), whereas /dev/cdwriter and /dev/scanner should point to the appropriate generic SCSI devices (/dev/sg*).

Non-transient sockets and named pipes may exist in /dev. Common entries are:
/dev/printer socket lpd local socket
/dev/log socket syslog local socket
/dev/gpmdata socket gpm mouse multiplexer

Some Linux daemons