5.1 Surround Sound, with On Board Sound Card

Hi, I'm using Ubuntu linux, and only the left and right front speakers and the sub give off sound. The center and the rear speakers are silent. My onboard sound card only has 3 jacks, in windows the drivers tell windows to output the other channels through the microphone and input jacks. Is there a way to do the same in linux? Would it be easier to just buy a new sound card with proper 5.1 support?

Originally Posted by computergee Hi, I'm using Ubuntu linux, and only the left and right front speakers and the sub give off sound. The center and the rear speakers are silent. My onboard sound card only has 3 jacks, in windows the drivers tell windows to output the other channels through the microphone and input jacks. Is there a way to do the same in linux? Would it be easier to just buy a new sound card with proper 5.1 support?

Check in the alsamixer for my on-board sound there are options to use Line-In As Surround and Mic As Center/LFE. That being said I found the 5.1 from it to be rather lacking and went with a secondhand cheap SB Audigy that I must say puts out some damn nice sound.

Could you post a screen shot, or something? I cant find anything like that.

Originally Posted by computergee Could you post a screen shot, or something? I cant find anything like that.

You can see the names of the options when moving to the different channels in the upper left of the screen in the Item: option. Now your driver that you use may not have these ones I believe it depends on what is detected for your hardware.

Ok I have no idea what I did, but it seems to be working in guild wars. Is there a way to make xmms play across all channels?

Originally Posted by computergee Ok I have no idea what I did, but it seems to be working in guild wars. Is there a way to make xmms play across all channels?

It just plays them across all of them here when I used both the on-board and Audigy but you can go into the Preferences (CTRL + p keys) then in the Audio I/O tab Output Plugin section click on the Configure button and try changing the Audio and Mixer device settings. Ah and make sure you have the alsa-oss package installed some applications need the emulation layer it provides.

Now it works when I check off dupilate front, is this ok? will the effects in games such as guild wars still be the same?

Originally Posted by computergee Now it works when I check off dupilate front, is this ok? will the effects in games such as guild wars still be the same?

You should check to be sure but it should be working still I had to use that one too but forgot about it sorry, I take it you have raised/unmuted the Center, LFE and Surround ones as well if they are there.