Hi!
I'm a rookie in linux. I have the same CMI9880 sound card but I'm not able to install on FC3. I have downloaded the alsa-driver-1.0.9 and I tryed to install but I got stucked. The install doc says that after I run the make install I should edit my kernel module config (either /etc/modprobe.conf) but it does not say with what should I edit.
I don't know what to do now to hear some sound on my machine. Can anybody help please?
Thanks.

No one has any experience on this?

i have the same card as u and i'v not yet found any drives for it. but i can hear a sound... sometimes . i supose that alsa driver is per default up (if i can say it so in english, but i hope that u understand). what is a little bit strange, sometimes i have to start video player gxine and to uncheck the icon with loudspeaker which is sometimes disabled (with red cross over it). pay attention that i said gxline, because no other media - player (which i have with kde) couldn't do it. (only now i note that i didn't try to use any musik player.) since recently the thnig works without it, but i played with some sound options. unfortunatly can not remember with which ones exactly,

Thanks.
Finally I managed to produce some sound with alsa but it's far to be a good one. I hope in the future there will be a driver for this card too

You haven't found any driver yet ?
Which kernel does Fedora Core 3 use ?

CMI9880 is one of the few chipsets (with Realtek ALC and SiS something) that conform to the Intel High Definition Codec (Azalia)
You need at least 1.0.9 alsa and at least 2.6.12 kernel.
If you have these then you will find an option "Intel HD Audio" in the kernel config

This driver exists for a long time now. At first it wasn't very good but now is pretty much mature.
I have the same card and use it with 5.1 channels and it works perfectly. I haven't tried 7.1 channels because i couldn't find in my town
and none of the DVDs i have have 7.1 AC3 sound (i don't know if any movie has) so i don't know the performance using 8 channels
but generally it works very good.

i use 2.4.32. i tried 2.6.13 but some things didn't work so good. for example i couldn't install drivers for my ati radeon card. but thnx it is good to know that for later.