realtek ac'97 onboard sound 5.1 problem
 

i only get sound from the 2 front channels. i'm new to linux and i'm just trying it out. if someone could point me in the right direction i'd be much appreciated.

Couple of questions:

1. what version of Linux are you running? (Distribution version, kernel)

2. What motherboard are you using (if you know)?

Chances are the latest fersion of alsa will work, but without knowing what you currently have, it will be hard to walk you through it.

oh sorry. :)

i just installed suse 10.0 and my motherboard is abit an8 sli.

i think this is my kernel version:
kernel version (2.6.13-15-default)

If you would be willing to try them, I have some source rpms of alsa 1.0.11. They are located here. To build them, open a shell window, and type "tar -jxvf alsa-src-rpms.tar.bz2" to extract them, then "rpmbuild --rebuild alsa-driver-1.0.11-1.src.rpm" to rebuild the drivers. After the build finishes, install with "rpm -ivh alsa-1.0.11-1.<arc>/rpm" (look at the build output for the exact location & filename). Follow the same procedure for the libs & utils (both alsa-lib and alsa-lib-devel need to be installed before building alsa-utils).

Let me know of any problems. Good luck!

i think i have installed everything except alsa-utils. when running the command "rpmbuild --rebuild" i get this error:

still only front two speakers are playing.

You need to install ncurses-devel. It should be on your installation cds. Use yast2 to install it.