"it's not that the solution is from 2006 so much as that the people stopped trying in 2006 to fix the problem"

Ah - but Ubuntu alone has had 10 or so totally new version (production release) releases since then... and then all the other distros - which are of a couple of distinct and largely incompatible implementations - which you CAN use SW built of one on others, you REALLY need to know 'how to repair carburettors' ...

You can search Yahoo Answers - sometimes you can find the right answer there, only sometimes....
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"what you're saying about sound systems in Linux is a point for my side. Linux has been around since 1992 and still hasn't figured this out? Not a strong argument in its favor."

The problem is that there is a mass of overlapping changes in the way sound is implemented (each one being a massive improvement in efficiency and uptime performance!), as well as a fundamental change to something called HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) and now things that run in 'userspace' rather than in 'systemspace' it seems that ALSA (which simon will not work without and tells you to install) is needed - there are WAYS to make many different sound system link together ...

"Not a strong argument in its favor" - well rather than 'fixing' Win9x to work with USB, they trashed it and made you buy a largely incompatible expensive NEW system.... that needed a massive quantum leap in computing power (and other incompatible hardware) to work ... You can still make a 'stripped down' Linux run on machines so old that the hardware is dying anyway ... Puppy, DSL (you can build your own router/firewall on an old Pentium) ...

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"Somebody either here or on another forum suggested I get a book"

Well these books are often more about how to 'design and build carburettors' (as per Bill D) - the 'simple' 'pretend it is windows' books will show you how to use the browser and edit a file, but will not help you to fix a sound problem, for instance, sadly... but once you understand pipes and redirections, you can build your own spelling checker using the inbuilt commands.... (grep, sort, uniq, etc) ...

UNIX/Linux is (atm) more of a Formula One or Dragster than a motorized shopping trolley... and works exceptionally well - much better the Windoze - for big production systems - it almost NEVER crashes for those Big Iron Servers, etc... but it is clearly not for everybody...