how to instal drivers

[mckinnley]

i have absolutely no idea how to instal a driver on kubuntu. i'll get these instructions on the driver that are just so incredibly cryptic that i can't even begin to imagine what they are trying to tell me.
like it'll say to install it just...
execute

./install

ok so what... what the hell does that mean, do i put that into the konsole? ok well if i do that i just get this

sean@sean-laptop:~$ execute
bash: execute: command not found
sean@sean-laptop:~$
sean@sean-laptop:~$ ./install


ok so great, that's a lot of help
so if i want to do it manually all i have to do is this

Complied source code
a. cd alsa-driver-1.0.xx
b. ./configure
c. make
d. make install
e. ./snddevices


um.... i'm not sure about you but those aren't instructions.

then it says to do this

Step 4. Edit your /etc/modules.conf or conf.modules depending on the distribution
(Please refer to the attached modules.conf)

snd-xxxx is the card ID.

-- Azalia controller --ALC880 ALC882 ALC260 ALC262 ALC883 ALC885 ALC888
--- Intel ICH6 ICH7 ---------
snd-hda-intel
--- ATI chipset -----
snd-atiixp

-- AC97 controller --ALC655 ALC650 ALC250 ALC255
--- Intel ICH6 ICH7 , SiS 7012 and NVidia----------
snd-intel8x0
--- Via8233 Via686a -------------------------------
snd-via82xx
--- ATI Chipset -------------------------------
snd-atiixp

Copy and paste this to the bottom of your /etc/modules.conf or /etc/modprobe.conf file.
# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-xxxx
# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss


are these people on crack? how the hell am i supposed to interpret this? this is supposedly "linux for humans" but i don't see how they can make claims like that when THESE are the kinds of instructions they give me.

i have two drivers that i need to instal, an audio driver and a WLAN driver, both of them come with instuctions that just don't make any sense to me at all so any help would be great.

[dibl]

Re: how to instal drivers

Yes, Linux is "expert friendly", in comparison to Windows which is "user friendly", or perhaps "newbie friendly".

OK, let's step back and take a fresh look at the situation. First, how do you know you need to install a special driver? You might, but then you might not, and if you do, you won't necessarily have to compile it yourself. It appears that you are struggling with a sound system? If you will open the Konsole and enter

lspci

it will show us your sound chip. Just highlight and right-click on the output, and paste it into a reply here. Here's kinda-sorta what you will see:

dibl@ibex:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82975X Memory Controller Hub
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82975X PCI Express Root Port
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GH (ICH7DH) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH (ICH7 Family) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G80 [GeForce 8800 GTS] (rev a2)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82573L Gigabit Ethernet Controller
04:00.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC16 (CX23416) MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)
04:04.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)

Also, before you go a lot further, you might want to check out the links here:

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3086812.0