Also, for some reason I have not been able to install Windows 98 over VMWare just yet. (That was one of the reasons for getting a faster machine; being able to run a proper web browser without doing so on my Mac (and possibly destabilising Cubase) or losing Linux.)
Why, you may ask, did I get a cheap sound card, and not something ultra-doovy? Well, I don't intend to use the Linux machine for recording or anysuch, and a cheap card is sufficient for browsing the web and listening to MP3s. Besides, if the cheap-sound-card-grunge effect ever becomes fashionable (as the crackling-vinyl and telephone effects have been), I won't have to spend several hundred on the boutique VST plug-ins that do it.