Well, I just fixed a couple of annoyances on my Debian system. Minor problems but annoyances anyway.
1. The latest kernel 2.6..... uses a new sound system called ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound whatever) and it comes up with default settings in the mixer controls with all sources muted and volume set at 0, hence no sound till you open the mixer and enable things and set the volume controls. Only kicker was that each time you re-boot the system, it returns to default settings...annoying to have to reset everything each time.
After fumbling around in Google, I found out you need to install 2 tool packages (alsa-base and alsa-utils), open a root terminal and run alsaconfig. This effectively then reads the mixer settings on shutdown and restores them on bootup.
2. Another sound related issue was in the browser when viewing audio/video clips. I could get the video, but no sound. Again it was a relatively simple fix, but a bear to find
Fix was a setting in the Multimedia Systems Selector (audio) under Default Sink. Once I changed the setting from default to Alsa, all was well.

Now if I can just figure out how to get a Java Virtual machine set up, I thisnk it is the last of my known issues.

Who said linux was only for geeks. as long as Google is around, I can geek with the best of them.

Dialtone