And let's make sure it's not some window manager specific problem, use something like http://libcdaudio.sourceforge.net/ or http://cscience.org/~lucasvr/Projects/lazy.html

Use those after you've killed your wm. Another option instead of using those, kill your sound server. In KDE it's gonna be artsd, so ps -aux it and kill it's pid. esound also might be on, check your ps -aux

Cool

I have this morning swapped the audio cable to be doubly sure of that bit.
No change.
with ref to the comment about creative taking over some other companies, I knew about this, they made 2 cards that were almost identical and carried the SBPCI128 name, they did have different skt layouts, but I have the original paperwork still for my card and have made sure I'm on the right socket, just to be double sure I have tried the other skts as well.
No Joy
My SBPCI128 Is recognised as an ensoniq chip. ES1370
snd drvr=es1370

tried typing kmix from prompt and it responded with something like dcop server started and then back to the prompt which meant nothing to me, but when I went into kmix from the menu, this time the mixer showed the cd input was off (The fake LED was dull), when I enabled it a blast of new orleans jazz comforted me. So what exactly has been done to sort this.

Everyone please submit your loser's five bucks via affero.
</gloat>

Somehow the soundcard had the CD input muted, not sure if Linux did that, it could be the ES1370 driver initializes the card with muted CD input and you have to manually turn it on.

Damn you Darin! You have been affero'd . What exactly is ISC?

Cool

Would u plz tell me how to enable the CD input that might have been disabled in the first place. Also, how can you know whether it disabled? I am looking all over for an answer of this tedious problem.
My sound card is built-in chip i810 run uder kernel 2.4.20-8.

thanks alot, but I don't bet, hope you don't mind.

-van