Several people I know have recently been trying to make an impression on the music industry so I thought I'd help out with a few tips for new artists and bands trying to make themselves well known.

This isn't an exhaustive list, but it will certainly help you in the right direction...

Be enthusiastic

If you would prefer to be playing football, play football - you need driving unstoppable enthusiasm so if you're not committed, don't bother.

Play any shows you can get

Phone round to try and get more shows - the more outings you get, even if the event isn't ideal for your type of music, the more confident you will feel on stage, the better you'll be at the next event.

Record a demo/EP

You probably know someone who has a recording studio near you. Get it done. You will find recognition much easier with promotional recordings.

Get yourself a proper website too

You think Myspace is fine? Think again. Myspace reeks of the "we do this just for fun" impression. get a website which is simple, beautiful and easy to navigate.
Don't do it yourself using Dreamweaver or Frontpage - look at something like Wordpress or get someone to manage Wordpress for you.

Recently I have been trying to get the sound working on a Thinkpad I have been lent (I think it's a T20) in Debian GNU/Linux.

I did

sudo alsaconf

but it couldn't find my card so I ran

lspci -vv

and found

00:05.0 Multimedia audio controller: Cirrus Logic CS 4614/22/24/30 [CrystalClear SoundFusion Audio Accelerator] (rev 01)
Subsystem: IBM Device 0153
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-