Ok so I managed to get Debian installed and it all works great except for the fact that I can't figure out how to get my printer and my soundcardto work. I've got teh emu10k1 module in my kernel (that's supposedly the correct one to use for a soundblaster live card) and so I figured it woudl be easier to install the alsa stuff and then use the alsaconf script to make it work. Well that doesn't appear to work since Debian's alsaconf doesn't seem to recognize my soundcard so I am not sure what is going on with that. As for the printer it's an HP DeskJet 940C which is supported according to the linuxprinting.org page. They recommend that you download and install the hpijs driver and then install ghostscript. So I did that but how the heck do I print with this thing now? The linuxprinting.org page didn't have instructions for that, they just said that it was supported and they said you have to make a /etc/pritcap file for it. I coudl do that but it needs to know what "filter" to use and some other thigns that I don't have a clue about. I should point out that this printer has a usb and a parallel interface as well. Which of those does linux like better? If some kind soul would give me ahand with this stuff that woudl be greatly appreciated. I just don't know very much about how unix-like systems handle hardware so I have a lot to read I'k sure. I've also got to get my cd burner and scanner workign as well but we'll start with the printer and the sound card as I need to print some stuff and it's too quiet in here. So thanks for allowing me to suck up some of your bandwidth with my rather stupid questions. With my luck I probably read the wrong documentation. But I'm learning thigns every day. And I haven't crashed my system yet so that is good. Even got my program almost finished. And anyway fiddling aroudn with this stuff keeps you out of trouble. So I'm off to go read some more and hack at this till I figure it out. Thanks to all of you who responded to my last post. I've got my machine all organized now and it works right finally. Thanks a lot for that and thanks for takign the time to read this as well. been sent off to live