i need driver of creative sound blaster 5.1 sound card for ubuntu linux.. or if somebody could tell me which sound card is compatible with ubuntu linux ...thanks

most sound cards are compatible with ubuntu, especially creative ones!

ps. Welcome to LQ

i tried with live cd .. it is not working... & i tried to download the driver for the sound card. i didnt find.. if u can plz suggest something that would be great ... thanks

Which version of Ubuntu are you using? Also, did you check the sound applet to make sure its not just muted?

Sometimes I've found Ubuntu chooses your motherboard card as default rather than the Soundblaster card.
What always works for me is open a terminal and type:

asoundconf list

This will return a list of available sound cards. Being a Creative card yours will probably be listed as Live. To set it as default type:

sudo asoundconf set-default-card Live

You will get a warning about this action!
If sound is still not working try a restart and check to make sure you do not have sound muted. I have been caught out more than once because the headphone output was muted.

You can also check System>Preferences>Sound and make sure that your card is set as the default mixer device

Why not use emu10k?

what is emu10k?
detail plz

It's the driver for your card, you should see it if you type lsmod in a terminal.

Merry Xmas

I have an Audigy 2zs that uses that driver. Windows XP has no problem setting up drivers for my card.

But:
If I remember correctly, I did a repair job on a customer's computer that had that card, it took a while to find a driver for Windows XP for it as it is a 'Vendor specific' card that Creative put together for Dell, and this customer's computer was a "throw together" with parts from many computers. Creative drivers do not work for it in Windows, I found something at Drivers guide dot com that eventually worked for Windows.
It may be your only avenue, to find which driver works for that card in Windows, then see what the equivalent is for Linux.

I looked it up in my notes, the card I'm talking about is called:
Sound Blaster Live 5.1 digital. The drivers I found for Windows is called: kxdrv3537-full.exe