You find this is quite a fully-fledged DAW when you start to dig around.
It interfaces with you soundcard through Jack, so you must be running this. QjackCtl is a helpful configuration program for Jack.
You may need other drives, e.g. if you have a supported firewire interface then you will need to use the Freebob/FFADO drivers.
If you're a linux n00b, don't try to do it all yourself. Go with a multimedia distro like Ubuntu Studio (http://ubuntustudio.org) or 64 Studio (http://www.64studio.com) (which in spite of its name also has a 32-bit version). That makes installing Ardour super-easy, although you forfeit the benefits of being up-to-date with it.
Not sure about ALSA (http://www.alsa-project.org) support for the Lambda. You might want to check on that before you take the plunge. If ALSA doesn't support your interface, you won't be happy with audio on Linux.
My laptop (a cheapo Acer with AMD Turion) has Vista and 64 Studio on it, and no problems with them coexisting.
Sorry for bumping this old thread, but if you're still into recording with linux, first check wether your sound card is compatible with the FFADO drivers (free firewire audio) and the jack audio server.
These are the two crucial parts of your hardware/software interface, if this works you can get a nice freeware studio working.
If you're interested in results you can get with Ardour, Ubuntu Studio and a firewire audio card, check my thread:
If you don't like the mix it's probably me, the possibilities are endless and some of the LADSPA and LV2 plugins are damn good, I don't use any VST effects anymore.