Sound problem on Ubuntu?

Question

I've been hearing a lot of good things about Ubuntu so I decided to try it live CD. I liked the interface since it was different so I decided to do a duel boot with Windows XP. I installed all the updates for Ubuntu and even got my ATi Radeon 9550 working which I was happy about, but when it came to my sound card there was no driver. I have a Creative Sound Blaster PCI512 which I bought back when XP first came out because XP didn't support the old AWE32 series until later. Well the card has drivers for Windows 98SE and XP but no Linux :( I hate having to buy sound cards because of OS changes and not because of a defect. I saw that there are drivers for the PCI128 which was a lower series than my card, so why no PCI512? Did my sound card fall through the crack between the PCI128 and Audigy series for Linux?

Answer 1

Did some extensive checking but wasn't able to find much on this problem. Some users of this card has similar problems a few years ago, where the card was installed but the default volume value was set to zero.

The most useful information i got was the the chipset used in your PCI512 is the emu10k1. This is apparently the same chipset used in the soundblaster Live! 5.1 so it's probably installed but just needs to be configured. See the link i posted below.

You can test the card to see if you can get sound. There are some drivers preloaded that might just do the job. Go to System -> Preferences -> Sound. On the device tab you can set all options to autodetect or you can test each option in the drop-down menu in turn to see if one works. Make sure the system volume control is set to maximum. Also try disabling the software sound mixer (ESD) setting in the 'sounds' tab (this is located in the second tab next to the Devices tab in the Sound preferences window).

The Ubuntu forums has some very useful troubleshooting guides. Take a look at this one. It involves using the command terminal, but all you need to do is to cut and paste the commands into the terminal. You can find the command terminal at Applications ->Accessories -> Terminal

to trouble shoot the card's installation -

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t...

If you don't get this card working, I'd recommend that you get the SB Audigy SE...it's not expensive, and you'll get full 5.1 surround sound with Ubuntu.  It actually sounds better than the SB Live! i was using before.