I have a sound blaster 5.1 surround sound card, and im running on linux suse, I have download alas, but i cannot figure out how to install these drivers. How do I go about doing this or is there a better option?

Is it an audigy or a live?

Its live, sorry for not saying that.

The first thing is to make sure you have to do something. Linux is getting really good at automating sound set up. Ideally, after you plugged in your sound card and rebooted, Linux will have probed for and detected the new card, then automatically loaded the right driver and other modules you need to use it. The Alsa drivers are now a standard part of the Linux kernel. Use lsmod or look in /proc/asound/ to find out what drivers have been loaded for your card, if any.

If something has gone wrong and you do actually need to use the Alsa drivers you downloaded, it should be just a matter of reading the README file in alsa-drivers-<version> and following the directions therein. You might alternatively want to configure and compile a Linux kernel, since Alsa is there in the kernel source code.

Try executing the command (as root) modprobe snd-emu10k1;modprobe snd-pcm-oss;modprobe snd-mixer-oss;modprobe snd-seq-oss. Then run alsamixer to unmute and raise all the volume levels.

The drivers you downloaded are most probably source code which you have to compile. Most distros come with ready-compiled drivers for you.

I did the above (because i found in my directory that I had the drivers installed) and i get a function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory, and like my name says im an idiot...so I dont really know what i should do in this situation.

At which stage do you get the error?

right after I run alsamixer

Can you run the command amixer with no arguments and post any output. Make sure the modules are loaded first.

if I try to run amixer without arguements I get "Mixer attach default error: No such file or directory
If I try to run alsamixer without arguements I get "function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory"

Hi,
I am getting the exact same errors as you. Did you find a solution to this problem?

See if you can run the command alsactl as root. Also, try another mixer app like aumix.

what distro?

I never have sound card problems because i always custom compile a kernel and compile ALSA right into the kernel.

im running Suse, and im way to stupid to custom compile a kernel, and im having trouble with aumixer, but im working on it...