[closed] Soundblaster card not working

[doctordruidphd]

This is a Dell XPS-630 64 bit system, with the latest kubuntu-JJ. It has an onboard sound system, which is disabled, and a Soundblaster XFi card. The card works in Vista, but there is no audio out of it in kubuntu. "alsaconfig list" produces no output. The sound item in System Settings shows several devices including pulseaudio and alsa, but none of them work. Something isn't configured right somewhere. Any ideas? Thanks.

PS Interesting thing is that when trying to set up a VM in Virtualbox, the sound card is listed as a device. Haven't set up an actual v machine yet, so I don't know if it works.

[mfabry]

AFAIR There's no official support for X-Fi yet. Not in kernel at least. My advice - enable onboard sound card and google for help with X-Fi.
Check:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=440866
http://connect.creativelabs.com/linux/Lists/Announcements/DispForm.aspx?ID=7&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fconnect%2Ecreativelabs%2Ecom%2 Flinux%2Fdefault%2Easpx

[dibl]

Sound troubleshooting guide is here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=205449

[doctordruidphd]

AFAIR There's no official support for X-Fi yet. Not in kernel at least. My advice - enable onboard sound card and google for help with X-Fi.

After searching around for a while, that appears to be the case.

I will check out the troubleshooting guide, but for now, I got the on-board sound system to work, and will await the arrival of X-Fi drivers.

[mfabry]

The second link I gave you - official beta drivers. Still unfinished and you have to compile them yourself.

[fermier]

AFAIR There's no official support for X-Fi yet. Not in kernel at least. My advice - enable onboard sound card and google for help with X-Fi.

After searching around for a while, that appears to be the case.

I will check out the troubleshooting guide, but for now, I got the on-board sound system to work, and will await the arrival of X-Fi drivers.



Well, I know the topic says closed, but I have the same DELL system and card as you have and I chose to install the OSS drivers for a 64 bit system. If you want to try, then get the tar ball from (was never able to get the deb package to work so do not even try it):

http://www.4front-tech.com/download.cgi

Follow the installation guide to the letter and reboot the PC. Then do the osstest command if you have sound you need to configure your other applications to forget all about alsa and use oss. A pain, but you only need to do it once. I find the sound quality very good and they even have their own mixer to control the volume. If you just want to listen to things and not make music yourself then this is quite a satisfactory way to go. However, you should first disable your motherboard sound before you do this.


Warning!! Each time the guys from Ubuntu give us a new kernel version in the update, you have to do the installation procedure again. It is a pain, but I have not found a way around it except for not installing kernel updates.