You sure are thinking WTF is this...It's a little demostration of how grateful I'm to be a member of this forum

My First Contact with knoppix was v3.3, then I already liked Win over linux but I always try at least to learn something new....

Until mid-November I was a heavy windows user but knoppix v3.6 change me, It was not easy...HDD instalation...Nvidia video...Nvidia drivers...Samba ... OSS ... ART ... Alsa you mention it, I was stuck with all...

I 've to thank you all for this, never had to post a topic (it was a sweet tentation) asking for help, why??? because the search button always give me the answer .. sometimes like with the final touch passing OSS --> activating ART --> to later desactivate all favouring Alsa, all that take me time understand.

But know I'm writting this from my favorite browser (firefox) listening anime radio (For who recommend streamtuner: Hey Pal!! this program is HOT!) , xine ready for all night marathon of Shadow skill (anime serie 26 files) in WM FLUX!!! juas ... something I learned from you linux's people is the anacronism KISS (Keep it simple stupid) no need for much effects when with little you can do the same and sometimes better.

I've thought posting my experience and the situations that I was almost ready to kill some of you but resintall later (3-4 from November first instalation v3.6) keep me calm. So I'll try to give info about situations where really I was coming a crazy killer user.

Configuration:
Epox 8RDA+ (nforce2)
Geforce 4MX 440 SE
256 MB
AMD Athlon XP 2000

1_ Video: All the rest can wait every user want at least see his video working, in my case Kano's script do the trick.

Code:
Identifier  "Card0
Driver      "nvidia"
Option      "NoLogo" "on"
Option      "NvAgp"  "1"
Option      "RenderAccel" "On"
VendorName  "nVidia Corporation"
BoardName   "NV17 [GeForce4 MX 440-SE]"
With a little tweaking on /etc/x11/XF86Config-4 I get 1638 on glxgears

2_ Forcedeth and i810_audio worked perfect but I wanted to try (god help me) the nvidia drivers. There was no way without receiving error about the kernel source, stop networking ok, unload forcedeth ok, worked ??? NO .. so where was the problem? All the forum info are about tar files not the new .run file at nvidia.

Code:
su
export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-2.95
/etc/init.d/networking stop
rmmod forcedeth
sh NFORCE-Linux-x86-1.0-0292-pkg1.run --kernel-name=2.4.27
That did the trick later folowing nvidia doc inserted alias for nvsound y nvnet on the archive /etc/modutils/aliases, options for nvnet on the archive /etc/modutils/options, insert # on modules i810_audio and forcedeth on the archive /etc/modules-2.4.27. I learned the very hard way (all day without nvsound working) that after changed this files always you must do update-modules.

3_ All runing, running well ? speed good, memory almost empty swapping all day, sound hanging on large video files (700MB) , only sound per one aplication....

For memory I tried many WM but Fluxbox was the most useful, little, consume little resources, very ease to configure ,perfect choice.

For sound I read, keep reading... honestly I dream with terms like OSS, ART, ALSA...
Finally setup arts which was really very simple with the instructions on the forum especially when you found the archive /home/user/.KDE/share/config/knotifyrc and change the options. But the Sound still keeped stuttering on videos or medium load.

So I hoped for ALSA, it wasn't such a great idea the last weekend searching and testing info, ended with more decepctions than winnings.... alsa-autoconfing never worked beyond preparing modules, reinstall with cheath code ALSA give me a hard install with no sound...

Finally one post send me to a mail list of alsa, I didn't really use it because int it was a link to ALSA site with the answers for my nforce plataform.

My way to make it work:
remove knx-alsa
apt-get alsa-base
apt-get alsa-utils
Download driver alsa-driver-1.0.6a.tar.bz2
And follow this instructions

ten minutes later and one hard boot, alsa working and all aplications working with sound at the same time without esound or arts.

I really thank you guys if mi#$#soft had a support team like the users on this forum have Linux will be really in danger, but like that will never happen...I'm happy to be a member of this forum.

Sorry about errors English is not my birth language