Right,

I've finally got Linux to work now, after thousands of hours, and many heart-breaking years, I'm finally at a point where I can play around with Linux fully!
I'm on it RIGHT NOW!! *creepy music*

*cough* Anyway, got the wireless network up and running in this last attempt, the sound's working, I see the writing and it's at a respectible resolution. Nothing seems to be standing in my way... Apart from a few little niggly bits that perhaps David, Al or ITID - perhaps anyone else with knowledge of linux - can help me with.

Do you know of any MP3 codec's about? I thought that you could get free LAME codec's etc to encode/decode MP3's. I'm going to search sourceforge soon.

Erm, Hard-drives. I'm using Fedora Core 4, and I SWEAR in Redhat 9 and below you could get a pretty nifty utility in the Control Centre that listed the mountable drives (or indeed un-mountable ones too) so you could mess around with them... WHERE'S IT GONE? Are there other ways apart from mesing around with the 'mount' shell command I was forced to use?

That's about all, just wanted to shout HORAH! and proclaim I'm now going to use Linux a fair bit...

Was the 'David' you're referring to above me? I sure hope not because I don't know a thing about Linux. Windows all the way for me.

well, it's a bit late for answering, but about mp3 decoders I think a player such as xmms can do the job. About encoding I don't know (and don't care) since ogg vorbis format is far better (and free) than mp3, so I'm encoding only in ogg now. Apart from this, I think the lame encoder can encode mp3.

About the mount utility, I think there was such a tool on kde before. Maybe it's hidden somewhere else now, but I find more convenient and quicker to type "mount" in a terminal.
Otherwise maybe gkrellm can give such information, and there are some other tools as well but I don't know the name of them.

Welcome on Linux / Unix, the best operative system

Just adding to the late posts... Fedora nerfed their packages of XMMS so that they don't support MP3, just compile XMMS for yourself and you should be fine.

I personally don't use Fedora (Slack here), but this is what I've heard.

Yeah, it took me about 4 hours to get a working copy of xmms installed (and then 3 mins to change the yum config so it doesn't update xmms and break it).

... I tried downloading it from the website and got so many errors installing it - or some of the many dependancies it has.

I found the plugin folder now, and was wondering if I could just steal the MP3 plugin and then upgrade and put the previous plugin back?

... ANYWAY, I personally think clicking on one device and clicking the mount button is a mite bit easier and alot more 'user friendly' than going into the terminal and typing:

mount -t vfat /dev/
#lookup the device name and hope it's the correct one#
hdb2 /mnt/shared

Then get an error coming back saying I've forgotten one option.

I have basically put it into the boot-up file anyway, so it doesn't matter so much.
I've recently had fun and games over a CD I have too. The only way I can listen to it is to rip it, and then play THOSE files... I believe it has something to do with ALSA. Linux won't even mount the CD!
Another thing to do with ALSA is that totem won't even startup, even using various terminal preferences. It simply complains about ALSA then prompty crashes. There wouldn't be any hope for me playing movies anyway as they'd be many .avi's and so need codec's etc.

Then there's the fact not only alot of Demo's are written in Windows, but also the demo's I've tried to download for Linux won't even work. (http://www.pouet.net)

I still haven't got the samba network working... I've tried setting it this way and that, and still nothing. I've tried using that E-something tool that monitors and captures network communication, and noticed the traffic that SHOULD be registering in the Linux Samba client - and yet doesn't.
Windows picks up the Linux machine just fine, but not the reverse!

There's the fact you can't easily customize the GUI too easily - although I use KDE because I just hate GNOME, so I have no idea how easy gnome is.
The Flash (Macromedia Flash) sync is off, where the graphics go ahead of the sound.
My TV card doesn't work in Linux - but seeing as the name is Winfast, I can understand why .
The RDP client (I can't remember the name - I'm in Windows right now) complains about the colour depth, but only after you finish the session.. It says it's changed it DOWN to 16 bit, even though it lies!

I would use .ogg, which I've heard gives a slightly better sound - especially at higher frequencies - but I don't like the idea too much seeing as:
1) My MP3 player doesn't work with .ogg's AFAIK.
2) My current collection is MP3 and I've recently changed all the names, and ID3V1 tags to be correct.
3) Converting .MP3's to .ogg's will lower the quality seeing as it's lossful, plus the fact it'll waste time.

There's various other niggles too... They still have a LONG way to become 'the best OS'.. Half of it comes with no centralized stuff..
Say you want a demo to work, it'll ask you to install numerous dependancies - which in turn need more. Most of these aren't even installed by default. - Most people seem to use third part libraries and require YOU to go get them - then install them with the product.

Overall I agree with Linux Format's evaluation - giving it a little way to go yet before getting close to being use friendly.

Oh, and I do like the terminal Yum and not the GUI-yum tools I've seen..

I've got this Ubuntu Live iso sitting around that I keep telling myself I'm gonna burn and set up a new partition and a dual boot with, but I need to back up a bunch of stuff before I get into tweeking with stuff. I believe it defaults to using GNOME but you can always go KDE. Personally I've had more trouble with KDE in the past, but a lot of that could have been driver related and fixed in newer builds.

If I find it can do what I want it to be able to do, I'll post about it.

I think most of your current question's will be solved when you'll be a bit more experienced and confident with linux, and especially with the terminal. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best and perfect OS for me.
about mp3 players, maybe you could have used vlc, I think it can play mp3 out of the box.
about mounting devices, generally you don't even need to type the file system (-t vfat etc.), the kernel can recognise it, and once you've entered the correct values in you /etc/fstab (generally generated by the system itself...), it's easy to mount the cdrom just by typing "mount /mnt/cdrom" etc.
For playing cd, I don't know what it wrong, but maybe if you use the tools provided by KDE you can play them easily. Alsa is a bit tricky to configure, and there are easier alternatives. Alsa is especially used for soundcards with wavetables ( = playing midi files), maybe I'm wrong here and it's used for other purposes, but for playing music I'm using OSS and for midi files I'm using the good timidity player, which is a kind of soft synth and can play midi files converting them to waves first, with a top quality (generally above midi from soundcards)
Samba is easy to configure.
there are graphical tools for making samba shares, but it's quicker to edit /etc/samba/smb.conf :

[global]
workgroup = your-workgroup
netbios name = computer-name
os level = 20
encrypt passwords = true
server string = Serveur public
security = share

[yoursharedfolder]
comment = shared folder without security or restrictions
path = /home/tron/yourfolder
browseable = yes
read only = no
writeable = yes
public = yes

once configured you just have to restart the service :

/etc/init.d/samba restart

if you just want to access a samba share on another computer, in KDE's konqueror type in the address bar :

smb://

and it will autocomplete the available possibilities.

On my computer the java and flash players are working fine.

Instead of RDP, you can also use VNC, or the faster FreeNX (but a bit more difficult to configure)

sometimes it takes a bit longer to learn how to do something on linux, but once you know it, and write some notes for memorising it, you'll be much much more efficient than on windows.
What I like too is all your settings are stored in your home folder, so if you change computer you can keep your profile easily. Once I did this at my office, and I didn't need to reconfigure my email accounts, browser bookmarks etc.

I think most of your current question's will be solved when you'll be a bit more experienced and confident with linux

Not likely.
Most of the problem's ARE programmed that way.
Totem crashing because it says ALSA isn't working properly - I'd say that's a strange bug that shouldn't even exist... Why FORCE a movie player to require a sound device in the first place?

How come Linux doesn't have a CENTRAL sound mixer? That would be so much easier for programmer AND user alike! one sound mixer in the midle between the hardware and the software trying to make sound.
Sure, ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) can be argued as such - BUT you can change it to others (OSS for instance.. I use a threaded one.. TOSS? something like that).
For some reason ALSA won't work at all.
What's even worse is there IS no configuration for ALSA - unless you can find some text file somewhere..... No thanks, I'll change back into windows where I'm GARUNTEE'd that the sound and video is sync'd, and I can watch my movies.

- Codec's is another issue. No central location of codecs on Linux... It would be so simple if you could have a program use a central codec base inside any Linux distro - each of which could be downloaded off of the net. These could be audio or video (or infact ANYTHNG).
Instead each player wants to use it's own form of plug-ins, each version probably requiring different plugin versions.
Not nice for the user to try and hunt down possibly non-existant plugins.

I'll have to look into that midi player though.. My SoundBlaster midi output isn't supported - for some strange reason. I've tried every configuration I could and nothing's worked so far.

XMMS can actually play MP3's out-of-the-box IIRC... Only thing is on Fedora you need to get a VERY old copy in .RPM format for it to install - after of course removing the previous install, and THEN after 'yum update' you need to remove it AGAIN and re-install... Because the thing won't compile.
THAT'S another thing... If you want someone to compile it, give them the damn files needed. I'm not saying you need to include them all in the same file - but giving DIRECT links would be GREAT, with the website afterwards... You always want to review the site before installing the stuff anyway. But hunting around sites for download links that require MORE browsing for download links are BAD!

... Samba *sigh*.
Until recently, when I messed about with Samba alot, whenever I went into "smb://" it kept saying "No workgroups availbable"... Then, it wouldn't even see he workgroup Linux should have made. Now it doesn't see other PC's on the workgroup.
I've looked at the raw packets, and there are major differences (like <B><L> and stuff from Linux - but not Windows). As I say, Windows sees Linux just fine! It's Linux not listening to Windows when it says "I'm here! Look-at-meLook-at-meLook-at-meLook-at-meLook-at-meLook-at-me!".
I've restarted it SEVERAL times, adjusted the ports to include 138 as well as 137 and 139. Listening to correct IP ranges, etc, etc, etc - add infinitum.

And the RDP tool, is just a minor annoyance. It works all perfectly fine until you disconnect and then annoys you with a box saying the colours have been lowered - even though they weren't.
- RDP's the only way I can see what's happening on my server PC. There's no monitor for it.

Somehow, I don't think a "./configure #stuff#" then "./install #other stuff maybe#" is any faster than a double click, then going through the settings. Especially when - in the first instance - you need to read the settings every time for different configurations. In the second, options are presented and explained one by one.

I agree Linux has some better models. The hard disk is but one of them (it's just starting to speed up actually - perhaps it's arranging the data into 'nice' parts). There's still loads to do though to get it more than 'working'.

Simple question. I know this is horribly obvious. You realize that ALSA is initially configured as muted, right? It's the default setting.

Are there any settings for ALSA?
The only one's I can find are in the control panel, which is about as helpful as a bag of pot peurae (SP?) at a swiss-cheese convention, during a heat wave in summer... in Egypt, when there's been a power failure over the whole continent.

.. I also find it horribly stupifying that the DEFAULT sound system, is set to MUTE. Smart guy's! Stop certain programs running, stop any sound going through it, and hide the mute setting.
And one other thing - if it's on mute, surely it wouldn't complain about not being able to run correctly when I set the sound system to whatever it is.

Wouldn't be the first thing that comes to mind - especially after the setup has an audio device testing thingy that makes music - and then an all-ok.

Try this command in bash:
amixer groups

Find the proper selection and use a similar command to:
amixer set PCM 100 unmute

http://tldp.org

This site will be your saviour. If the above didn't work, refer to this article:
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Alsa-sound.html

It says it better than I can

Number 1:
Alsa doesn't have "amixer groups". The mixer doesn't support that.

Number 2:
ALSA does half work...
Just that TOSS (I was right for once) Gives me no error messages.

Number 3:
Totem STILL crashes. Totem therefore sucks donkey balls.

Number 4:
That website (HOWTO/Alsa-sound.html) sucks, so it ALSO sucks donkey balls.
It's tried to do too many things and so become convoluted and hard to get around.

... In conclusion, I'm sticking to TOSS, and investigating a movie player that isn't made by some idiots.