Worked a treat, thanks! Didn't even take very long - 20 minutes or so

Now if Creative will just pull their finger out and make a 32-bit X-Fi driver I'll be laughing.

Don't suppose you know of any fan controller software like Speedfan for windows?

For the fans you can use lm-sensors and it's interface.

More info is here:

Ubuntu and Fan Control - CNET Linux Forums

http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/Ecology-HOWTO/ecology-howto-fan.html

IIRC there is a driver that will work for the X-Fi under linux but according to this is isn't there for hardy yet.

Ubuntu brainstorm - Provide Creative X-Fi driver in restricted driver repository

I gave up on creative after my Original SB Live!, it's a shame as the SBPro was such a good card, but after the AWE32 it just went down hill IMHO.

I gave up on creative after my Original SB Live!, it's a shame as the SBPro was such a good card, but after the AWE32 it just went down hill IMHO.

Yeah, I had an Audigy 2 which worked fine but on a whim bought the X-Fi Fatality...didn't do any research, if I had I'd have perhaps gone for something else - Terratec perhaps?

And I'm normally so careful!

Well, in a leap of faith im now running hardy on my desktop too in dual boot...

have imported my FF profile and got pidgeon working.. current annoyance is the scroll wheel on the mouse isnt smooth at all and its really annoying... anyone know how to fix?

EDIT: have sorted scroll wheel out in FF settings

Is the scroll in FF only or X as a whole?

It can be edited in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

Regarding the sound cards I know I had a load of terratec machines with working sound cards under linux a good 5 years ago. It's a case of looking up ALSA drivers for your card.

If it's in ALSA there is a good chance it works well. IMHO the ALSA guys will get some creative ones out in a bit of time anyway.

I've gone from 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon?) to 8.0.?? (Hardy Herron) just by clicking the update manager and then clicking new distribution available? It worked for me fine.

now 8.04 is out of beta 7.10 users should have this option.

The way I suggested will still be valid, it's just the old (manual) way of doing it all.