A Solution For: SBLive Digital Output (especially gateway oem versions)
 

Getting Digital Output from the Emu10k1 drivers on SoundBlaster Cards

I've had a bit of trouble with this, and I've noticed that of the many (if not all) posts to LinuxQuestions regarding this have gone unaswered or unsolved. Let's clear this up.

You are trying to make your SoundBlaster soundcard (probably Live Value!, but others work this way too) output in digital from its main miniplug jack. You're probably using Boston BA735 speakers or something similar, and your computer is probably a gateway on which you're trying to install Linux. As it is, you can only get analog output.

Judging from the multitude of posts on this topic on linuxquestions.org, you're not alone. I have a Gateway system (from early 2002) that came with a Gateway OEM version of the Soundblaster SBLive Value! card.

Here's the deal:
The emu10k1 drivers note, specifically,
"OEM SBLive cards present in Gateway brand computers also have a shared analog/digital jack but use a different and still unknown method for switching the card."

Despite this, I'm listening to Seek Up from a recent Dave Matthews concert through my gateway speakers, so the drivers do work for this in some capacity. I've noticed some cutting out, especially right after I switched to digital mode, and perhaps this can be solved by increasing the audio sound buffer size (in redhat, this is in the control panel). As it is, I haven't had any skipping recently.

Anyway, if you'd like to get your card to output digital:
Here's what needs to be done:
- You need to be using the emu10k1 soundcard driver for linux which can be found on sourceforge.com
- You need to download the emu-config tools, which can also be foudn on sourceforge.com
- You need to plug the digital speakers into the _primary_ output miniplug female connection on the soundcard (on Gateway OEM versions, this is *green*). With this step, however, you may wish to wait until after you've rebooted to avoid funny/loud sounds from your speakers.

Now, all that needs to be done is:
- Open up a shell (I don't think it has to be root)
- type
emu-config -d

And you're set. If it doesn't work initially, rebooting should help (or probably just restarting the sound server). Regardless, this is, as far as I know, the best us SBLive'ers are going to get until a newer version of the emu10k1 drivers come out.

Cheers
Henderson