pavilion 8660 conexant riptide&display pb supermount output/input

[leneophyte]

So here I am ready to join the user community.
the first step is usually the harder one.I'am calling on you and I do appologie if my request has already been answered...

I did install Mandrake-Linux 8.1
hp pavilion 8660uk with 216 Ram, 10G
-lnx4win under win98 (gave 2.4Meg for linux)
display:
-sis 530
sound/media games controller:
-conexant riptide PCI

And when I try to access the cd or floppy
I do have an error message concerning the input/output in the supermount.
from what I found out it's a media related pb. dixit
"Input Output Error"
---This error occurs when you try to access a medium which hasn't been mounted - or, in case of supermount, inserted - yet or is due to media failure.---

As with mandrak I do not have sound!
impossible to play mp3 files.

And I do have trouble with the diplay (when prompted with the pinguin no problems but when I use linux the image get a "bit mix"
(sems not to erase properly the window I close)
after research ->my conclusion.(am I right?)
I don't have proper driver for linux for display & media:
diplay
-din't find
media
-olitec but it sems to be only for modem
-I found opensound but i would like to know if there is any alternative
and if instaling a new driver will afect win98?

I don't want to mess to much and I am as new as a baby.

any advices reference please are welcome
As i realy would like to have a taste of linux.

thanks

by the way about HP they say they are close to linux but for my pavilion there is nothing on there website for linux I know I bought my syteme with win98 but a place where you can download patch for linux would be very much apreciate I don't think it would be very expensive (as I belive they can collecte infos)
and would confort there position as linux-friendly...(witch from my point of view is not the case)

[Santosh Nair_1]

I did a bit of research into your problem and it looks I have some bad news...the riptide sound card is not fully supported, although someone said that it should be SB compatible, so you can try using SB setting to see if sound works (remember to get the IRQs and DMAs right).

As for the video, I looked on Mandrake's site and they suggested adding "vga=761" in lilo.conf in order to avoid graphical troubles. This *MIGHT* help the X windows problem you're having.

As for supermount, since I don't use it, I don't know much about it...sorry.

Finally, most of the changes you make under Linux should NOT affect the workings of your Windows environment as long as you stay away from the partition tables. So feel free to experiment.

-Santosh