Creative Audigy SB not working with Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty on Asus A7V8X-X
 

Hello. I'm a noob, trying to get sound out of a Creative Labs Audigy SB PCI card on an ASUS A7V8X-X mobo. Problem was on an Ubuntu 7.04 partition, dual-boot with WinXP partition, which incidentally has no problem with the sound card whatsoever. Recently upgraded to Gutsy Gibbon (7.10), but still no sound. 1.5 GHz Athlon, 1.5 GB of RAM. I tried "lshw" in terminal, and it tells me that I do indeed have said sound card, with the "Emu10k1_Audigy" driver for the sound and the "Emu10k1_gameport" driver for the gameport. There is another sound chipset on the mobo, but I can't find it in the output from the lshw command.
Relavant part of lshw, run under Ubuntu 7.10:

*-multimedia
description: Multimedia audio controller
product: SB Audigy
vendor: Creative Labs
physical id: 13
bus info: pci@0000:00:13.0
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=EMU10K1_Audigy latency=32 maxlatency=20 mingnt=2 module=snd_emu10k1
*-input
description: Input device controller
product: SB Audigy Game Port
vendor: Creative Labs
physical id: 13.1
bus info: pci@0000:00:13.1
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=Emu10k1_gameport latency=32 module=emu10k1_gp


I tried pasting the results of "lspci" into an online DB that I found concerning Debian hardware compatibility, and got the same info, plus the opinion that this sound card works under Debian. I know Ubuntu is only Debian-_based_, so this bit of info may be bogus. I have insufficient knowledge of machine code to even guess.

From output of lspci, run under Ubuntu 7.10:

00:13.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy (rev 03)
00:13.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy Game Port (rev 03)
00:13.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port

Under the Device Manager in the GUI, I get multiple entries with no apparent difference between them for ALSA Midi, OSS Midi, ALSA hardware-specific device, OSS PCM device. Under the Advanced tab, there are minute differences between the entries, usually just different ID numbers, it looks like, as in:
linux.device_file string /dev/snd/hwCOD0, hwCOD1, hwCOD2, etc.



When I open the Sound Preferences panel, and try to do a test of any of the sound controls, I get this pop-up note: "audiotestsrc wave=sine freq=512 ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! gconfaudiosink profile=music: Could not open resource for writing." I've tried tweaking the sound preferences until I'm blue in the face; no joy there. Is the "could not open resource" part of the message, an indicator of permissions needing to be tweaked, and which ones would it be? Is it possible that the sound server isn't even running? Where would I go on the system, or what command would I use, to check that?
The ALSA project site matrix lists the loaded drivers as the right ones for this card, and I've even tried to follow their instructions to do a re-install of the driver. This box _claimed_ that the re-install was successful. Faced with continued total silence, I sense that my computer lied to me. I have also read on a couple of different forums that Creative simply refuses to support the developers of Linux drivers, and that I'd be better off just ditching the card for a more compatible one. When I wrote to Creative, their excuse is that there are too many distros to support them all. They sent me to CreativeOpenSource webpage, which pretty much sends you on to the ALSA sound card matrix.
I would appreciate any help on troubleshooting this, even if it's "stop wasting your time with that card, and here's why:". -And if that's the case, can anyone recommend any PCI sound cards that are famous for working with any flavor of Linux, anywhere, anytime, under all conditions? You know, the sound card you'd choose if you had to install Slackware on an old Russian-army-surplus ICBM mainframe, on a tight schedule. All I want is a sound card that I could plug into any handy slot on an ancient Egyptian limestone obelisk, and get reliable multi-channel sound and a microphone pick-up. Is that too much to ask?