Hey guys, what equipment and software do I need to record music onto my computer from an electric guitar?

Well, on the low-end side, you just need to plug your guitar into the line-in of your soundcard/motherboard. Better yet, go through the amp if you have a line out on it.

Of course, best case, take the guitar through the amp, and then into something like a Guillemot or Creative's Audigy 2 line of sound cards.

For the actual recording, you can use pretty much anything. Sound Recorder, Audacity, Wave Studio, and Audition will all do what you need. Just check out the Music Software, etc thread for software options.

You can use a free program called audacity: audacity.sourceforge.net/
to record audio. It is simple to use, and does multitracking and effects.

As for recording, you will probably get the best results by putting a microphone in front of your amp rather than hooking the guitar up to your computer.

You can get decent results just by plugging a mike straight into the microphone jack of your computer, but it will sound better if you get a preamp that powers the microphone before sending it to the computer.

You can do that with Audacity? Huh, cool. I downloaded it a while back but never did anything with it. Now I'm interested.

As for hardware, all I have is an onboard AC'97. So... here's hoping, anyway. :P