Dylan, Thanks for the help. It got me to look more carefully. I now know that SuSE v8.0, v8.1 and v8.2 were installing correctly to allow for sound recording. The problem was me not using the software correctly. Am now eating lots of humble pie. I can now record on both of my Athlon boxes. Have made the following observations: 1. On board sound on the Gigabyte GA-7DXR mobo ('Creative Sound Blaster AudioPCI128') is OK with acceptable background noise level. Unable to set up games controller on this box. 2. On board sound on the Gigabyte 7-VA mobo (Realtek ALC650) works, but with an unaccepably high background noise level (ca -40 dB). I've since disabled the on board sound and installed a PCI Sound Blaster Live! 5.1. This separate sound card has a much lower backgound noise level (ca -70 to -80 dB) and also allowed me for the first time to enable my games controller under Linux. YAST2 had no trouble setting up this card. So we've solved two problems at once! Thanks again Ken Hough