P4P800 Sound Issues (Fedora Core 1)
 

I decided to give FC1 a try (I already had the disks burnt from a previous try or I would have gotten FC2), after XP pissed me off for the last time. Anyway, after much tweaking, I finally got the onboard gigabit LAN (3Com 3c940) working, and the sound "sort of" works. It's that SoundMAX stuff, AC97 compatible (Intel 865PE chipset).

Now, first thing was, the digital (coaxial) output doesn't work! No problem, I'll use analog - sounds the same to me. But, here's the thing, I can't have more than one program use the soundcard at the same time! This really wouldn't be a problem, BUT, sometimes GAIM likes to keep a hold on my soundcard (it doesn't close all the way half the time), so I can't listen to XMMS without typing "killall gaim". I did a little reading, and it sounds to me like, if you want to have more then one sound source at a time, you need hardware mixing. So, are there any drivers available that would enable this hardware mixing, or maybe even my digital output? Should I try installing ALSA (that's what's in the zip file if i download ASUS's linux sound drivers)? I think I'll give this a try anyway and report back, but I just hope I don't screw it all up and have no sound :rolleyes:.

Well thanks a lot for any help you guys can give!