[PlanetCCRMA] Getting started, but getting nowhere

[D. R. Evans]

I have an Athlon X64 3500+ system, and can't get it to do anything
useful with PlanetCCRMA :-(

1. I originally loaded 64-bit Mandriva 2006.0 on the system (since I'm
a long-time Mandrake/Mandriva user), to make sure that everything
worked.

2. I added a 1010LT and played around a bit with ardour, hydrogen,
alsaplayer, jack, etc., and everything seemed to behave sensibly.

3. Satisfied that the hardware was all working as it should, I removed
MDV 64-bit 2006.0 from the computer and installed 32-bit PlanetaCCRMA
FC3, since I wanted a distro optimised for audio and one that would be
more easily kept current than MDV.

4. As far as I could tell, the installation went fine. At least, there
were no obvious errors.

5. OK, so the first test is to try to play a CD. No sound :-(

6. Completely unfamiliar with Gnome, I have spent about an hour trying
to figure out how to get sound (ANY sound) out of the system and have
failed.

7. Figuring that someone here must be using the FC3 PlanetCCRMA distro
and a 1010LT, I figured that rather than  getting more and more angry
and frustrated, the time had come to ask for help. What _exactly_ do I
have to do to simply get a CD to play and produce audio? (I'm sure
that Gnome is a fine desktop manager, but as a long-time KDE user I am
finding it very time-consuming to figure out how to do even simple
things; so when I say "exactly" I do mean that. )

(I've tried all the analogue output leads on the 1010LT; there seems
to be no audio on any of them. I have no idea where the audio is
supposed to be routed to by default [under MDV 2006.0, it simply came
out of analogue channels 1 and 2; I didn't have to do anything at all
to make it all work])

Thanks for any help that anyone might be able to offer.