LinuxQuestions.org - can only duplicate to 4.0 sound; how do I do 7.1??

Hello, this is my first question here, so please be nice....well anyways, I am currently using opensuse (10.2), and overall I really like linux; more than XP.

However, even though KDE comes with Kmix in this case, it only lets me clone the front speakers out to 2 of the others I have. The center speaker doesn't produce any sound whatsoever, and the same with my rear speakers. The side speakers produce the same sound as my front ones, and the subwoofer seems (might be) softer than in windows (but I can turn it up, so that isn't a problem). The connections cable-wise are set up in the right way for windows to play sound properly to all of the speakers, but as mentioned earlier, I only have 4.1ish surround in linux.

I tried setting all of things on. I.e. in alsamixer, I turned on center speaker, LFE, surround, etc etc. but they do not seem to do much in this case. Oh yes, and I haven't tried a 5.1 dvd or something like that. How do I clone/test/play sound on all of my speakers, especially the center one? I'm currently using a soundboard that's part of my motherboard; the model is ABIT KN8 SLI. In windows, the soundboard uses Nvidia drivers. Creative labs speakers btw.

I did look at some how-to's on the alsa wiki, but those just got me completely confused. For one thing, I didn't find any that specifically gave instructions pertaining to 7.1; 5.1 setups seemed to be covered significantly better, but still...confusing for me at least.

Thank you very much in advance.