OK, I was planning on getting the Audigy 2 Platinum for my Mandrake multimedia machine. After much reading, I've found that the card is not supported. The OSS drivers only enable 10% of the functions and the line-in doesn't work, which is a necessity for my tv tuner.

My question is, if I'm willing to pay $130 for a great soundcard, what would be the best choice for linux. I prefer to use alsa, but OSS support would be fine if the card was good enough to warrant a change.

Depends what you want to use it for. If want a very high quality 2 channel card with analog and digital outputs and you're willing to pay an additional $20, I highly recommend the M-Audio (aka Midiman) Delta 2496. It's fully supported under Alsa.

http://www.zzounds.com/love.music?p=...=1602437623376

That is nice to know that professional sound cards are supported under LINUX. I don't have to use kiddy like sound card such as Audigy 2 if I want professional sound quality under LINUX.

Thanks. That is a monster sound card, though a bit much for my needs.

The major use of my machine is backing up my dvd collection to Divx/Xvid, ripping my cds, listening to MP3s, watching DVDs, using FM tuner, using TV tuner, etc... I also do general internet surfing and such.

Basically, I don't need anything fancy. Just a sound card with EXCELLENT sound quality and a line-in port. My c-media onboard is a 5.1 and not that bad, but I need something with better SNR.

I guess when I said "multimedia system", it was a bit vague. Thanks for any advice.

Try getting software that digitally extracts your audio CD and DVD without going through the sound card. You don't have to worry about the sound card or video capture card as much.