My soundcard isn't working so I downloaded the drivers for it. I just have no idea how to install it. The file is "au88xx-1.1.2.tar.gz. Can someone please help install this in order to get my soundcard to work? I'm new to RH9, so I don't really have any experience in shell. If anyone can explain what I have to do in order to install the driver it would mean alot. Thanxs!

first uncompress the file. You can probably do it by double clicking on it. It will create a new directory with all the files. Go into that directory and there should be a readme file that explains what to do. Hope this helps a little.

the extension .tar.gz means it's an archive (tar) file that has also been zipped. to uncompress this, use

tar -xzvf filename

that usually creates a directory called filename, which you should enter with cd filename. the usual process for installing packages from source is

./configure
make
make install

HOWEVER - it is always a good idea to read any instructions included before installing, as quatsch suggested! usually you can find a file name INSTALL. you can read it using

cat INSTALL

or

less INSTALL

hope that helps,

Thanx!!! Helped alot. But after I read the README file and installed the file, alot of errors came up. So I went back to the README file and read that "if you get unresolved symbol errors during install, rebuild your kernel with sound suppor (soundcore) built in (not a module)". Does anyone know what that means and if so can u help. Don't mean to be an ass, but please be specific as I am not "shell" literate yet. Thank you.

hmm. i still pretty much a newb myself, so i don't know the ins and outs of getting your soundcard working, unfortunately. what that's saying though, is that you have to recompile your kernel. there are a number of threads about doing this with extensive advice, just search around for a couple minutes. since it's pretty complicated, you might just do some research on it and wait and see if anyone else has ideas of how to get the card working without recompiling the kernel. on the other hand, it'll certainly be an educational experience!

sorry i couldn't be more help,

sounds to risky for a newb like me. I'll wait for other opinion. Thanks anyway!

i don't blame you, i still haven't gotten around to it either

compiling kernel is straight forward if you follow the steps as described in http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO.html

Make sure that you have kernel sources (/usr/src/linux-2.4/ on RH)
then cd to the kernel source directory and do a
make xconfig
you should be running X windows for this (you default gui login should do this)
This pops up a kernel configure window,where you can select/unselect many kernel options.

Read http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Kernel-HOWTO/quick_steps.html
this first though

after making the required changes, save and exit the kernel configurator and do a
make dep
nohup make bzImage &
this will put the new kernel here:
/usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage
copy this and the .configure file in the kernel source directory into /boot
and update your boot manager.
May be you'll need to read the respective howto. Look it up in
http://www.tldp.org

Hope that helps.