I just installed a SoundBlaster Live! Value Edition PCI card on my Epox 8KTA3 motherboard. I had been using the motherboard audio (VIA 686B) but replaced it because of a problem with the MIDI port. I went into the BIOS and turned off the built-in sound. Windows 98 is happy enough, and finds the sound card. But Linux seems to ignore the fact that the motherboard audio is turned off in the BIOS.

So now, when I boot Linux, the system sees the VIA sound system *and* the SBLive, but doesn't actually send sound to the SBLive card. I tried this in SimplyMEPIS beta3 (from CD), with both 2.4.26 and 2.6.7 kernels, and in my installed Mandrake 10.0 (2.6.3). The MEPIS mixer shows both mixers, letting me adjust both, but the sound system doesn't play. The Mandrake mixer (both in KDE) only sees the motherboard, though the Mandrake Control Center sees the SBLive card. I am guessing that ALSA is pointing its output at the motherboard sound system. But I don't know how to stop it from doing that. Linux is no fun if it's silent.

Any suggestions for getting Linux to *use* the SBLive card and ignore the motherboard audio? Thanks.

the second soundcard will be added as /dev/dsp1 (/dev/mixer1), so you'll have to tell your progs to use this device.
maybe you can disable the onboard sound by not loading modules for that card. have a look where mandrake's configfile is and edit it. when the modules for your onboard card don't get loaded /dev/dsp will be assigned to your sblive.

sl mritch.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I went into /etc/modules.conf and removed the via-snd line which was apparently loading the VIA sound driver. (There was another line loading the SBLive.) I then rebooted.

X Windows wouldn't start. Couldn't find Nvidia kernel extensions, or something like that. (I had installed them, and my GeForce had been working fine.) So I rolled back to the saved modules.conf file and rebooted. Still no X Windows. And I hadn't even touched anything video-related.

That's where I'm stalled. I rebooted MSWindows. Ugh.

An update... the X windows problem was caused when, for reasons unknown, the nVidia kernel mod went away. I reinstalled the nVidia drivers and it worked. But that was Mandrake.

To summarize: The motherboard VIA 686B sound chip can't be disabled -- the BIOS setting to do so is ignored by Linux. So the Sound Blaster Live! card where the speakers are isn't getting used.

I just installed Simply MEPIS, to see how it looked. I had a spare partition lying around. Alas, the sound problem is still there, just different, because MEPIS sets things up differently.

The KDE control center sees both sound cards. But it doesn't have /dev/dsp1; indeed, it doesn't even show /dev/dsp. (I'm using the 2.6.8 kernel.) XMMS lets me pick various options, including ALSA. The ALSA configuration options in XMMS list both the motherboard sound card and the 'blaster, but nothing makes it work. I edited the right file in /etc/modutils/ that commented out the via-sndxxx driver from the modules.conf file (which is full of warnings to not edit by hand!). But still no sound.

I'd appreciate suggestions for getting the blaster to work in MEPIS. Thanks!