2. Preparing the hardware
There are two categories of hardware: Plug-and-play, and , err, non-Plug-and-play. If your piece of hardware is recent, like a PCI board, then it's likely to be PnP. If it is not that recent, ( though perfectly fit for duty :) then it may well be non-PnP.
If you also use Windows, you can use it to get info about your hardware. See below .
2.1. Plug and Play
Plug and Play is basically one thing: knowing where, and how to talk to the device. It is not directly related to autodetecting new hardware.
If your hardware is plug-and-play, as is the case with most modern stuff ( almost all PCI devices, and a few of the last ISA boards), you may plug it and jump directly to the section about Configuring the software.
 | Disable the BIOS feature 'PnP OS': Linux can't assign resources by itself. Disabling it means the BIOS does the assigning. |
 | Actually, it is a good idea to fiddle with the settings to prevent two highly-used devices from sharing the same resources. See your BIOS documentation. |
2.2. non-Plug-and-Play
What I basically know is that you must tweak some settings (IRQ, DMA, IO address) on the board by moving jumpers. I've been told some devices could only be configured by using MSDOS/Windows tools.
Either way, you must find free resources (IRQ, DMA), as most non-PnP devices do not support sharing. Then write them on paper and feed them to the driver.
2.3. If you use windows
If you happen to use Windows on the same machine, you can use it to extract lots of info about your hardware, (assuming it's working satisfyingly under Windows).
Right-click on 'My Computer' , choose 'properties' and you'll see a list of all your hardware. Copy down the parameters such as IRQ, DMA, IO ports, etc. Using these will save you a lot of time.