well, Cuddles, I wrote with you in mind. I was always too darn cautious, but having switched (so to speak) to a distro using alsa I am well aware of your probs (don't let anything mess with it once you have gotten it to work!). My main squeeze at the moment (and although typing this on live CD knoppix 3.4 2.6 btw) is kanotix BH4 (yes, 4, I am behind). I have it tuned to a perfect pitch- I got that nasty alsa working with arts no less and nothing gonna mess with my baby. I hated the instability of KDE 3.2.1 and said why not, I upgraded KDE. I found 3.2.2 more stable but the bugger had 3 bugs, 2 of them published on KDE's site and geez I am seeing so many asking in forums/usenet - don't they look these things up? Anyhow, got over my fear of the dreaded apt-get upgrade.......BUT I did a dry run...I put all the pkgs that had "alsa" or "arts" on hold. I got past the bugs that got past the developers in KDE 3.2.2 so am happy but I am not going to mess with fate where the sound is concerned.

So, basically I have upgraded major stuff (KDE) but not the kernel on this though I have stuff on hold that I am scared witless to let go. I really love my system just where it is. I installed BH5 to my spare machine. The alsa probs on there are major league. No way-no how it is going on my main machine. But how long can I keep holding? Like, I am tempted to upgrade those nasties with arts and alsa in the name - I guess I will have to eventually?

I don't fear apt, I actually embrace the bugger in a warped, codependent kind of way. Like with lm sensors I had to get the latest from them directly, you know the deb doesn't work even on kanotix. So now ksensors won't install with apt because it doesn't know I HAVE lm sensors working (fine with gkrellm anyway) it wants to install old lm sensors. I like apt because I can undo what I/apt have done. But if the sensors hadn't gone nicely outside of the apt system...I haven't a clue how to get them out (did a stab at uninstall command, nopers). Anyhow, frozen in time am I.

Oh Gary, I found the power mgmt in kanotix BH4 (2.4.25 I believe) to be quite nice. My only complaint or question, how the heck is it pulling this hat trick off:

Local APIC disabled by BIOS -- reenabling.
Found and enabled local APIC!

I installed this with acpi support (could someone please give us noobs a nice definition/differences on apic and acpi? They are related I know but not the same thing)

Nish
(out of kernel compiling business, rilly I am )