Im tired of using Ubuntu linux without sound!! (sound card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi)

Which distribution should I use with the system that I am running?

System is a pentium core 2 duo
nVidia GeForce 7300 LE video card
creative sound blaster x-fi sound card
theres a dvd drive, tv tuner, yada yada yada, the standard stuff.. its actually a dell XPS 410 originally, if that helps..

I dont want to haphazardly download some distro and find that my ... video card isnt compatible or some dumb shit like that... and going through web page after web page searching for different lists of information which usually doesnt include my question is annoying.. so i figure you, the wise and experienced... expert... can help me with your vast knowledge of linux computing...

I use Vista and dual boot with windows being my primary system (i know, i know.. i dont have a choice some of the stuff i do is just easier for me at the moment to do in windows)

thanks for your time.

Give PClinuxOS a shot. It will run as a live distro so if all works out you can just install it alongside xp. Check it out here: http://www.pclinuxos.com/

There are drivers, they are just not open source:

I just did a search for a random x-fi card... but I guess if one is supported, they should all be supported. You can just do a search here:
http://asia.creative.com/support/downloads/

Maybe it's even available through the restricted drivers manager:
System-Administration-Restricted Drivers...

If a Soundcard is not supported by either ALSA or OSS, chances are NO distribution will support it out of the box.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Linux Distributions and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

oskar, the site you showed has drivers but only for the 64 bit version of ubuntu

Interesting...
A guy from the ubuntu forums has reported partial success (sound works, but with limited functionality) - with this:
http://www.opensound.com/download.cgi



... The ALSA drivers are there, but they are not yet implemented. There's a gentoo howto in the making that tells you how to do it yourself for now:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-587921.html

Should work the same way on most distributions.

Doesn't look too terribly complicated.

--- just a little rant that will amount to nothing.

I had my first problem with Creative in the mid-90's when I got my parents old 486. It had an early Soundblaster card... it was an excellent card, and pretty pricey a few years earlier, but it was impossible to get the drivers. Creative had stopped support and stopped even hosting the drivers... I did get them again at some point, but over some obscure warez site that had my virus blocker panicking.
It's a shame because their hardware is pretty cool... if you want an all-in-one midi/audio/effects solution. And I've seen that over and over again... once a product is off the market, they act like it never existed.
I have switched to m-audio who produce great hardware, but without all the gimmicks. They still put out drivers for the card I bought in 2002 though.

**RANT ALERT**

blast the closed source world! we would have so much more progress, intellegence, and economical advantages if there weren't people like those at microsoft and those in our government who try to control everything! i understand that microsoft is in the business of making money, but they have firm grip on organizations and its just not fair, its limiting.. the government though: pretty soon all of our television channels will be broadcasting on all HD ... DIGITAL... that means they will make analog signals "illegal" to use or some shit and man, everything is gunna suck...

**PHEW** I feel alot better, lol... goin to the Bulls game tonight

okay real linux news here now:

{BBI}Nexus{BBI}, I downloaded pclinuxos as well and used the live CD and something weird is happening...

The system recognizes the hardware as Sound Blaster X-Fi.. but when i try to run a music file it comes back and tells me that there is no sound card recognized... so... its basically thinking theres no sound card, but when i look up the hardware and shit it tells me that there is a sound blaster x-fi there...

weird?

I think you ought to ask over at the PCLinuxOS site. There is a suggestion in this thread but no indication as to whether it worked:

http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?o...&topic=42217.0

Best of luck !!

Not really.
It doesn't take much to recognize a piece of hardware... having the drivers ready is a different story.
I guess the Gentoo forum link I found is your best shot until it has been implemented into alsa.

Kubuntu
http://www.kubuntu.org/

Mandriva
http://www.mandriva.com/community/mandrivaone

PCLinuxOS
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?o...iles&Itemid=28

Mephis
http://www.mepis.org/

Blag
http://www.blagblagblag.org/download/

jacook... i appreciate your help with these links, the thing is that i am aware of these distros but the thing is that i dont know which one will work with the Creative X-Fi sound card...

but thanks for pointing me to the right places to start as i am sure your knowledge of linux is higher than mine..
i have investigated the links above and i have learned from them as well.. thank you..

Have you checked the mixer to make sure that your soundblaster is the selected output? There should be a drop down box if you have choices. If you had sound when running as a 'live' system, then I reckon the mixer is where the problem will lie.

no no no, there was not any sound on the live disk... what i was saying is that the operating system (pclinuxos) is telling me that the sound server is not working when i start the OS... then when i go to configure pcLinuxOS and i look at the hardware under sound it says the name of the card but it doesnt have a driver i think and therefore when i run the driver config tool it comes back telling me that there is no sound card...