Thanks for the tip..... Yes, that's one of the first things I did, was to make sure both of those items were check-marked ON. After you mentioned it, I just went over and checked them again, and they were still checked on. I even tried clicking on a few of the system and game sounds, but no luck. My sound(?) is quiet as a church mouse.

I'm wondering now if choosing RH was not such a good idea.

Well, I've tried all the suggestions from everyone, and still there is not a hint of any sound from my SB LIve card and the RH Linux 9 OS.

Whilst browsing through this hardware forum, I see several others are having similar (or the same) problems getting sound to work in Linux. Is this a weak area in all Linux distros?

I like the development tools and the basic look and feel of the RH distro, but am considering trying another distro, just to see if I could get some sound. Are there any distros that are known to work reliably with SB Live cards?

Well I can tell you that I've never had such problems with sound in linux. Especially not with such a common card. Did the card work under windows? Have you ever gotten sound out of it? If yes then there's only one other solution I can think of and that's install the alsa drivers. They're available from www.alsa-project.org and they've never failed me. If you do go this option and they don't work then there's something else wrong (ie not a driver problem).

Before you go the alsa option, though, you should just double check the permissions. Make sure you're part of the audio group. In fact add yourself to every group. Edit the /etc/group file and add your username to every line. Then log out and log back in.

Thanks, I will look into the Group thing, ...I haven't done that.

Yes, the card has been in the PC since I bought it new from Gateway, and it has always worked flawlessly. If I boot up to Windows XP Pro right now, it works just fine. Plays CDs, mp3s and anything I want.

I have two HDs and XP is on the orig. HD. A new 60 GB HD has the Linux distro on it.

I read in another thread where a fellow was having trouble with the ALSA driver and the same card and Linux OS, so I'm a little reluctant to jump on that horse just yet. Maybe later....

After messing around with this sound card problem for the better part of a week now ---I finally may have located the problem.

This may or may not help others, --but I will post it here just in case.

Turns out my computer a Gateway 1.4 GHz, Pent 4, contains a SoundBlaster Live Sound card that according to Gateway might be just a wee bit different than a standard SB Live card. In other words, it was made specifically as an OEM board for Gateway.

The sound system that came with my system consists of Boston speakers, a Woofer, and two desktop speakers. They are specifically for digital sound. The speakers, and sound card have always worked perfectly with Windows OS, first ME, and now with XP Pro.

Apparently, this combination of SB Live card and digital speakers just ain't gonna work with the Linux OS (Red Hat 9).

I plugged a set of headphones into the Analog jack, on the sound card, -----Yes! I could finally hear system sounds from Linux.

How I learned this was because I downloaded and installed the OSS driver (Culver, CA). After installing it, I still had NO sound. When I sent an email to them asking for help.... they replied very quickly, and told me their driver would DEFINITELY NOT WORK with my card and digital speakers. But that it would work if I plugged Analog speakers in the card.

That got me thinking..... and I went back to the standard Linux driver, and Yes, the sound was coming out of the analog jack.

I'm still very disappointed that RH Linux 9 won't work with my digital sound system (and speakers). Couple that problem with a few other things I've yet to find answers to..... and I guess I'm ready to give Linux a REST! Maybe it will be ready for prime time in a year or two.

Thanks for all your help and suggestions.... I learned a lot

Not having either an SB Live or digital speakers I can't confirm anything but if you google for '"digital output" alsa' there are lots of hits. Looking at more recent links it seems like you can use digital speakers with SB Live and linux, so long as you use ALSA for sound.

Model number of my Sound Blaster Live 5.1 is SB0100
Current kernel is 2.4.23-pre4
Sound card has always worked from the beginning from Redhat kernel 2.4.20-8, all other Redhat kernels, and to all the kernels I have built.

I have no other ideas at this time.
Brian1

Brian,

The hitch seems to be that I'm trying to use my digital output to my digital speakers. Can you tell me if you are using the digital output to digital speaker system?

Mine are Boston speakers (digital sound) and my SB Live card came pre-loaded with my Gateway PC, 1.4 Ghz, Pent 4.

No, I just use plain analog audio. I just keep it simple.

Brian1

Buy a retail Soundblaster LIVE!. On ALSA site read the comments for the card. It says OEM Soundblaster LIVE! is different to the retail cards.

Well, you know what..... I view that as an ALSA problem, not a Soundblaster problem. If ALSA is going to produce a driver for Soundblaster cards, then it should work with all of them. My Gateway computer is probably not the only one that has ever tried to run Linux with an OEM SB Live sound card.

My SB Live runs perfectly with my present system and Windows XP Pro (as well as it worked fine with Windows ME before that). If the OEM card is such a problem, I wonder why ME and XP (right out of the box) didn't have problems with it??????

Guess I'll just have to skip Linux for the time being. Anyway, I doubt very much that the massive sound card problems are the only shortcomings in Linux.

hey tacobell i have the same problem, u are right it is to do with the sb live being manufactured for the gateway oem. i also have just installed red hat 9 and am having trouble getting it to work, though ive just installed red hat 9. i also have the same digital speakers as you. But do not dispair my brother did get the digital speakers working, although it was when i was using mandrake 9 as the linux os. So the digital speakers can work, i think it is just the config in the emu10k driver needs to be altered. if i get a solution i will post it up.

to get the digital output in red hat 9 you are going to have to use the ALSA emu10k1 drivers.

go here http://www.alsa-project.org/ and download the driver, library and utilities tarballs or just grab them from here:
ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/drive...0.0rc2.tar.bz2
ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/lib/a...0.0rc2.tar.bz2
ftp://ftp.alsa-project.org/pub/utils...0.0rc2.tar.bz2

then unbzip and untar, since you are new i tell u how, go to the directory where u downloaded them eg /home/download in console then type
tar -jxf alsa-driver-1.0.0rc2.tar.bz2
tar -jxf alsa-lib-1.0.0rc2.tar.bz2
tar -jxf alsa-utils-1.0.0rc2.tar.bz2

you will need to have gcc or some other compiler installed to be able to configure and compile the source code of the alsa drivers.

then go here:
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc...module=emu10k1
this page shows you how to install the alsa drivers, note u have already unzipped the alsa packages.

before installing you will want to remove your previous driver by going

rmmod emu10k1
in the console
if your install was the same as mine you will also want to remove a couple of lines from modules.conf before installing alsa.
edit /etc/modules.conf and remove the lines

alias sound-slot-0 emu10k1
post-install sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -L >/dev/null 2>&$
pre-remove sound-slot-0 /bin/aumix-minimal -f /etc/.aumixrc -S >/dev/null 2>&1 $

this will prevent the kernel emu10k1 driver from loading.

once you have installed and configured the alsa driver u need to run alsamixer and unmute and increase volume of:
master
wave
EMU10K1 PCM (all of)
and the most important unmute:
SB Live Analog/Digital Output Jack
to use the digital jack. this is right at the end of the mixer.

if need any help just ask.

hope it works for you.
:-)

yup i know this thread is old, and i dont even know why im replying to it. but the fact is, i have a gateway too, and i've had the same problem, and it took me like a week to fix it. search google for "emu10k config tool", (sorry im too lazy to give you the link). once you find the right one, download and install it. you can use that tool to switch to digital output, i think you have to do something like emu10kconfig -d (i forgot). the thing is, i know that once you get that tool, you will be able to switch to digital output and your boston speakers will work fine.