Matt,

On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, Matt Waters wrote:

> Hello. I just subscribed to this list last night, and am very new to Linux, 
> so I preemptivly apologize if I ask a stupid question.
> 
> Anyway, I used to run a redhat box on an i686 but took it down because I 
> could never figure it out. After several months of cussing out my windows 
> machine (I switched to Win2k, and although a massive improvement over Win9x, 
> is still very buggy) and at the recomendation of a friend's father who is a 
> huge UNIX guru, however, I decided to give Linux another try. My 3 major 
> problems with getting Linux up and running are the fact that I can't find a 
> modem anywhere that will work with Linux, my Voodoo3 and SB Live cards don't 
> have drivers written for them that I know of, and the fact that I have 
> virtually no experience with UNIX.

That comes with use...

>                              If any of you would give me the name of a 
> good, relatively cheap modem, point me to some Voodoo3/SB Live drivers, or 
> give me a few pointers on how to learn Linux, it would be most appreciated.

1. Modem: look for any _EXTERNAL_ modems or look for a an ISA internal
modem. Look on the box for "Works with 486", or ask the salesman if it
works on 486. I have a very good Boca modem with all the jumpers you
want.

2. XFree86 4.xx supports Voodoo3 so get RedHat 7.1 beta or Mandrake 8.0
beta or any recent Linux distribution and add XFree86 4.0.3 to it.

3. SBLive drivers for Linux exists from alsa project at www.alsa-project.org.
 You should download the latest version 0.9beta3 and compile it (there are
good instructions in the archive).

> Also, I know it's fairly subjective, but what distributions do you guys 
> think work the best, based on your experience?

I have good experiences with RedHat x.[12]. I have bad experiences with
RedHat x.0 . You might want to try Mandrake as it's more newbie friendly.

> Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

... when it will be supported on linux :)

florin