Few Linux commands to make hardware work

sometime we find it very difficult to make our linux detect the peripherals connected to the system.
well these few commands will help:-
lspci- this will output the peripheral devices connected to the computer bus. use -v option to see the details of the devices.
Now u have to find the modules for the hardware which u r unable to use in linux. In my case it happened to be onboard soundcard. Search on google to download the kernel modules for the hardware u want to make work. Download the modules for ur kernel version. To find which kernel u r running use uname -r.
I downloaded alsa-modules for my kernel ie. 2.4.27-2-386
now use this commmand
modprobe module_name
to load the module in the kernel.
and u r done.
hope this will give u hint to know wht to do? Well i m new to linux n trying to learn basics. Will post something interesting in next post.