sound recording

[gbburkhardt at verizon.net (Glenn Burkhardt)]

When I upgraded to a 2.6 kernel, sound recording from line in stopped working 
for me (from Mandrake 9.1 to Mandrake 10.1).  I used to be able to use 'krec' 
without problems.  Now I'd like to use the microphone, too.

The mixer controls seem to have some effect - the line in and microphone can 
be heard through the speakers, and the controls seem to affect the speaker 
sound.  But the VU meters (in aRts control and krec) are dead as a doornail.

Does anyone know an easy way to test whether the driver is working properly, 
or it's a problem with the higher level sound management?  I'm using the KDE 
desktop, ALSA, and, apparently, the 'artsd' daemon is running.

P.S.  Where's a good place to read about all this?  Sound in Linux seems to be 
quite complicated.