Let
${{b}_{1}}$ ,
${{b}_{2}}$ be any integers such that
$\gcd \left( {{b}_{1}},{{b}_{2}} \right)=1$ and
${{c}_{1}}\left| {{b}_{1}} \right|\,<\,\left| {{b}_{2}} \right|\,\le \,{{c}_{2}}\left| {{b}_{1}} \right|$ , where
${{c}_{1}}$ ,
${{c}_{2}}$ are any given positive constants. Let
$n$ be any integer satisfying
$\gcd \left( n,\,{{b}_{i}} \right)\,=\,1$ ,
$i\,=\,1,\,2$ . Let
${{P}_{k}}$ denote any integer with no more than
$k$ prime factors, counted according to multiplicity. In this paper, for almost all
${{b}_{2}}$ , we prove (i) a sharp lower bound for
$n$ such that the equation
${{b}_{1}}p\,+\,{{b}_{2}}m\,=\,n$ is solvable in prime
$p$ and almost prime
$m\,=\,{{P}_{k}}$ ,
$k\,\ge \,3$ whenever both
${{b}_{i}}$ are positive, and (ii) a sharp upper bound for the least solutions
$p$ ,
$m$ of the above equation whenever
${{b}_{i}}$ are not of the same sign, where
$p$ is a prime and
$m\,=\,{{P}_{k}}$ ,
$k\,\ge \,3$ .