Sound recording in Debian Lenny

[Lisi <lisi.reisz@gmail.com>]

I am after something from never-never land, but I live in hopes.

I need a sound recorder, and would prefer that it be in Debian Lenny, but a 
dual-boot would be possible.  It must fulfil the following criteria:

1) Be managed by someone who knows a little bit about Linux, less about Debian 
and absolutely zilch about sound recording and balancing etc.

2) Ideally, usable by someone who knows even less about computers and sound 
recording, but can use this package without too active a helping hand.

Last time my husband needed to record a book, I Installed Jaunty on a computer 
that I had to dedicate to it, used gnome-sound-recorder and held his hand 
constantly.

I have searched online both in the list of Debian packages and via Google, and 
have used aptitude search and, for luck, aptitude show.  Krec, Audacity etc. 
are non-starters because they assume that you would know how to use at least 
a simple mixer.  I don't.  I simply couldn't work out how to work them, 
partly because I did not even know the vocabulary.

Debian Lenny is what my husband has currently on his computer.  He doesn't 
like change.  He is using KDE 3.  I am about to set up Squeeze with Trinity 
to see whether I think that it has come of age.  But meanwhile, Lenny it has 
to be.

Thanks for any input.
Lisi