How to setup my soundcard?

Troubleshooting.  If you are having problems with a sound card, a manual configuration is an option. Here is my setup for a SoundBlaster16-compatibile ("no name") soundcard that persistently played at half speed (too slow and with "low voice") 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 that 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 (shutdown to a halt, and then recycle the power).

How do I setup my printer?

Most printers will work perfectly under Linux, but some may not utilize their full capablity due to lack of information/drivers from the vendors. Therefore, when purchasing a new printer, you may want to consult the database of Linux printers:  http://www.linuxprinting.org/database.html.  In brief, it is a good bet is to select ( http://www.linuxprinting.org/suggested.html): 

- For inexpensive colour printing:  an Epson Stylus, for example:  Stylus C80 (better) or Stylus C60 (cheaper) (Dec.2001). HP inkjets are generally less recommended than Epson's. Please note that "inkjet-type" printers are (in general) "not-so-great" for black-and-white printing. Also, they are meant to be "personal" printers and do not handle well high volumes. Yet they can offer excellent colour output, particularly on good quality paper. Kids love inkjets.
- For low-end laser printing:  a Lexmark or Brother printer.  Many Hewlett-Packard (HP) laser printers will also work perfectly, but one has to be more careful when selecting an HP printer due to their more limited support. Lower-cost laser printers are always black-and-white, but they offer excellent quality text printouts. You may avoid some headaches if you select a printer which supports "Postscript".

Word Perfect 8 does not have a driver for my printer

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.
/boot/grub/grub.conf - configuration file for grub 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 these.
/etc/X11/XF86Config - X configuration file. For XFree version 4.xx, the file is /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 (if it

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. To make some devices usable to all users on your system, you may need to set the proper permissions. For example:
ls -l /dev/usb/scanner0
chmod 666 /dev/usb/scanner0

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/ttyS2  and /dev/ttyS3 the third and fourth serial port (typically not present, but your internal modem may well be configured as one of these).
/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. That's where normally printers are connected.
/dev/lp1  - printer on the second parallel port (typically not present).
/dev/fd0 - first floppy disk drive (almost always present).
/dev/fd0H1440 - driver for the first floppy drive in the high-density mode (1440 kB). Generally, this (or a driver with a device with a similar descriptive name) is invoked when formatting a floppy drive to 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 drivers files by default.
/dev/fd1 - second floppy disk drive.
/dev/hda - first IDE hard drive  (whole drive). Most hard drives on IBM-compatibile PCs are IDE.
/dev/hdb - second IDE hard drive (whole drive). On many computers, the IDE cdrom drive is attached here.
/dev/hdc - third IDE drive (whole drive). On many computers, the IDE cdrom drive is attached here.
/dev/cdrom - a symbolic link to the appropriate drive interface, typically  /dev/hdc or /dev/hdb (a CDROM) or /dev/scd0 (a CD-R/RW writer).
/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/tty2 is the second text console, etc.
/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. Do cat /dev/random to display garbage-looking characters on your screen. There is also /dev/urandom to generate lower-quality random sequences.
/dev/sda -the first SCSI drive (whole drive). On a home machine, you are unlikely to have any SCSI drives (expensive).
/dev/sdb - the second scsi drive ("sdc" is the third scsi drive, etc. There can be many scsi drive on a system).
/dev/sda1 - the first partition on the first scsi drive.
/dev/sr0 - the first scsi CD drive (sometimes called /dev/scd0). If you have an ATAPI CD writer, it will also be likely here.
/dev/sr1-is the second scsi CD drive (sometimes called /dev/scd1),  (/dev/sr2 is the third scsi CD drive, etc. There can be many scsi CD drives on the system).
/dev/usb/scanner0 - a usb scanner.  Try: less /usr/src/linux/Documentation/usb/scanner.txt for an info on scanner configuration from scratch.

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

As explained in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/devices.txt, 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 (but my RedHat have /dev/cdrecorder)
/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
[create a symbolic link so that /dev/mouse point to the first serial port]

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

Here is a short list of popular daemons with a brief description:

anacron - checks `cron' jobs that were left out due to down time and executes them. Useful if you have cron jobs scheduled but don't run your machine all the time--anacron will detect that during bootup.
amd - automount daemon (automatically mounts removable media).
apmd - Advanced Power Management BIOS daemon. For use on machines, especially laptops, that support apm.
arpwatch - keeps watch for ethernet/ip address pairings.
atd - runs jobs queued by the "at"  command.
autofs - control the operation of automount daemons (competition to amd).
bootparamd - server process that provides information to diskless clients necessary for booting.
crond - automatic task scheduler. Manages the execution of tasks that are executed at regular but infrequent intervals, such as rotating log files, cleaning up /tmp directories, etc.
cupsd - the Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS) daemon. CUPS is an advanced printer spooling system which allows setting of printer options and automatic availability of a printer configured on one server in the whole network. The default printing system of Linux Mandrake.
dhcpd - implements the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) and the Internet Bootstrap Protocol (BOOTP).
gated - routing daemon that handles multiple routing protocols and replaces routed and egpup.
gpm - useful mouse server for applications running on the Linux text console.
httpd - daemon for the Apache webserver.
inetd - listens for service requests on network connections, particularly dial-in services. This daemon can automatically load and unload other daemons (ftpd, telnetd, etc.), thereby economizing on system resources. Newer systems use xinetd instead.
isdn4linux - for users of ISDN cards.
kerneld - automatically loads and unloads kernel modules.
klogd - the daemon that intercepts and displays/logs the kernel messages depending on the priority level of the messages. The priority is (copied from /usr/include/linux/kernel.h ):
KERN_EMERG      "<0>"  system is unusable
KERN_ALERT      "<1>"  action must be taken immediately
KERN_CRIT       "<2>"  critical conditions
KERN_ERR        "<3>"  error conditions
KERN_WARNING    "<4>"  warning condition
KERN_NOTICE     "<5>"  normal but significant condition
KERN_INFO       "<6>"  informational
KERN_DEBUG      "<7>"  debug-level messages
The messages typically go to the appropriately named files in the directory /var/log/kernel.

kudzu - detects and configures new or changed hardware during boot.
keytable - loads selected keyboard map.
linuxconf - the linuxconf configuration tool. The automated part is run if you want linuxconf to perform various tasks at boottime to maintain the system configuration.
lpd - printing daemon.
mcserv - server program for the Midnight Commander networking file system. It provides access to the host file system to clients running the Midnight file system (currently, only the Midnight Commander file manager). If the program is run as root the program will try to get a reserved port otherwise it will use 9876 as the port. If the system has a portmapper running, then the port will be registered with the portmapper and thus clients will automatically connect to the right port. If the system does not have a portmapper, then a port should be manually specified with the -p option (see below).
named - the Internet Domain Name Server (DNS) daemon.
netfs - network filesystem mounter. Used for mounting nfs, smb and ncp shares on boot.
network -activates all network interfaces at boot time by calling scripts in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts .
nfsd - used for exporting nfs shares when requested by remote systems.
nfslock - starts and stops nfs file locking service.
numlock - locks numlock key at init runlevel change.
pcmcia - generic services for pcmcia cards in laptops.
portmap - needed for Remote Procedure Calls. Most likely, you need it for running network.
postfix - mail transport agent which is a replacement for sendmail. Now the default on desktop installations of Mandrake (RedHat uses sendmail instead).
random - saves and restores the "entropy" pool for higher quality random number generation.
routed - daemon that manages routing tables.
rstatd - kernel statistics server.
rusersd, rwalld - identification of users and "wall" messaging services for remote users.
rwhod - server which maintains the database used by the rwho(1) and ruptime(1) programs. Its operation depends on the ability to broadcast messages on a network.
sendmail - mail transfer agent. This is the agent that comes with Red Hat.
smbd -  the SAMBA (or smb) daemon, a network connectivity services to MS Windows computers on your network (hard drive sharing, printers, etc).
squid - An http proxy with caching. Proxies relay requests from clients to the outside world, and return the results. You would use this particular proxy if you wanted to use your linux computer as a gateway to the Internet for other computer on your network. Another (and probably safer at home) way to do it, is to set up masquarading.
syslogd - manages system activity logging. The configuration file is /etc/syslog.conf .
smtpd - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, designed for the exchange of electronic mail messages. Several daemons that support SMTP are available, including sendmail, smtpd, rsmtpd, qmail, zmail, etc.
usb - daemon for devices on Universal Serial Bus.
xfs - X font server.
xntpd - finds the server for a NIS domain and stores the information about it in a binding file.
ypbind - NIS binder. Needed if computer is part of Network Information Service domain.