Well,
I am trying to get my sound blaster card to work under Slackware 9.0. I have searched the forum on this topic and I have read a lot of posts on getting the sound card setup. From what I have read the Dell Dimension line of PCs come with a Sound Blaster Live Card called 5.1 which isn't the same as the regular Sound Blaster Live! card. I have read in a previous post that there is NO linux driver for this Live 5.1 Card. Is this still true? I have a Dell Dimension 4500 with a Live 5.1 card and I am trying to see if the ALSA project can get my sound card to work. Is this a futile effort? Does anybody have this SB Live 5.1 card working under Slackware in any way(ex: ALSA, a driver etc)? Care to share how you did it? I am sure this would benefit many people. Thanks.

I have an SB Live 5.1 working just fine on a dell. You just need to make sure you have the EMU10k1 driver compiled into your kernel or loaded as a module.

My SB card doesn't run on a dell but I still have it working with the EMU10K1 driver as jtshaw said. Pat stuck some emutools in the extra/ directory of the slack-current, I believe these were for people with sound blaster cards if I read the changelog properly. GIve that a go and see what you can find out.

Well, I gave up on this for a while and now I am comming back to it. I still don't have my sound working. I am not sure how you guys were able to get the dells to work. From what I have read on the net and on this forum is that the soundblaster cards shipped with the dimension series don't use the emu10k1 chipset, but a slightly different one. I haven't tried the emutool yet, but will look into it.

I can however provide you with the errors I am getting and I would appreciate it if someone can walk through them with me.

I tried to install the ALSA programs by downloading their drivers and following their instructions here:
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc...module=emu10k1


What I get when I boot Slack and start KDE:
Informational - artsmessage
Error while initializing the sound driver
device /dev/dsp can't be opened(No such device)
The sound server will continue, using the null output devices.

What is in my /var/log/syslog:
Aug 2 12:00:54 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module char-major-10-134
Aug 2 12:01:03 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-0
Aug 2 12:01:03 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-0-0
Aug 2 12:01:03 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-0
Aug 2 12:01:03 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-0-0
Aug 2 12:01:03 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-1
Aug 2 12:01:03 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-1-0
Aug 2 12:01:03 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-1
Aug 2 12:01:03 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-1-0
Aug 2 12:01:03 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-0
Aug 2 12:01:03 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-0-3
Aug 2 12:01:08 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-0
Aug 2 12:01:08 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-0-0
Aug 2 12:01:08 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-0
Aug 2 12:01:08 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-0-0
Aug 2 12:01:08 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-1
Aug 2 12:01:08 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-1-0
Aug 2 12:01:08 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-slot-1
Aug 2 12:01:08 darkstar modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-1-0


What I get when I run lsmod:

Module Size Used by Not tainted
parport_pc 14724 1 (autoclean)
lp 6752 0 (autoclean)
parport 23264 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
usb-storage 60116 0 (unused)
uhci 24560 0 (unused)
ehci-hcd 14632 0 (unused)
usbcore 58144 1 [usb-storage uhci ehci-hcd]
i810_rng 2624 0 (unused)
i810-tco 3088 0 (unused)
8139too 15272 0 (unused)
mii 2240 0 [8139too]
snd-emu10k1 59316 0 (unused)
snd-pcm 55968 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd-timer 13316 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-hwdep 4672 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd-util-mem 1136 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd-page-alloc 4732 0 [snd-emu10k1 snd-pcm]
snd-rawmidi 12480 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd-seq-device 3904 0 [snd-emu10k1 snd-rawmidi]
snd-ac97-codec 36104 0 [snd-emu10k1]
snd 27364 0 [snd-emu10k1 snd-pcm snd-timer snd-hwdep snd-util-mem snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device snd-ac97-codec]
soundcore 3332 2 [snd]
emu10k1-gp 1352 0 (unused)
gameport 1452 0 [emu10k1-gp]
pcmcia_core 38112 0
ide-scsi 8048 0



PLEASE HELP

ok, I am facing the same problem. I have gotten 4-Front OSS demo to work with it, bt it is only a demo ($35 to buy) and it has glitches still. I dont really want to throw $35 for a FAR from acceptable sound system. Using OSS< quality is terrible, and it makes weird sound pauses, and weird noises very often. Suse 8.2 detected a driver for it, and supposedly installed it, but I cant get any sound from it. If you find anything, please post a reply here, as I really want to have some sort of acceptable sound on my comp.

PS

I saw somewhere that we could have asked Dell for a standered sound card when we purchased. I think they should tell you that their cards are useless when running Linux, so I could have thoughtg to ask. I wonder if they would ship me a replacement??? (Wishful thinking)

Hey drtsystems,
I have searched the net on this topic and many people have the same problem. I didn't know there are so many versions of the SB Live card(ex: SB Live!, SB Live! Value, SB Live! 5.1). I had posted that I have the 5.1, my mistake I have the SB Live! Value card
I am a little pissed, I choose the SB Live! card for the specific purpose of Creative being so commonly supported. And by the way some people at the time of order asked Dell for the real SB Live card, and still got the other cards. So in the last month I have found that I have 2 useless pieces of Hardware when it comes to Linux my soundcard and my winmodem
I don't blame Linux, I blame the hardware manufacturers, MS and dell for not making this clear when ordering.
The only 2 solutions I have heard is the $35 driver from opensound and that ALSA makes a driver for the Value card. I tried the ALSA route and I still don't have sound. Frankly I am a little confused with all the versions of this soundcard and some people saying that they have it working fine, while the large majorty of dell owners don't have sound.

Any other ideas? How about helping me work through my first error message in my previous post??

it seems like I have the same problem.
I got my puter from Gateway.
SB Live! Value 5.1
I've tried several Linux Distributions and only one have made it
mandrake 9.1
Red Hat, Slackware, Suse, and Mandrake 8.2 can't seem to run
my soundcard. In mandrake 9.1 it works perfectly.
Same with windows. It works fine in w98ME, w2k but it doens't
work in XP. Not even if I downlaod the drivers from Creatives homepage.
I have to upgrade from w2k to Xp to get the sound to work.
I've made it work under XP once but the boot time extended over several minutes every time the soundcore was loaded.
My graphic card ATI Radeon VE has a similar problem. Works fine tho but the specific ID number doesnt exist at ATI's hardware page.
I guess its time to stop byuing crappy computers from crappy manufactures.

mmmm IMHO gateway isn't the way to go with a computer at the moment. I'd probably custom build it, unless of course you wanted warrenty/support. It's MUCH MUCH cheaper like that anyways. As for the sound card, mine forks fine, however it is a SB Live! 5.1 (no value) and it works fine with slackware.

building my own computer, what am I facing with the possiblity of screwing something up and wasting tons of money. I tried moving an old PII from one case to another and somehow screwed up the mobo, so that the comp wont boot. I wouldnt want to worry about doing that with a new board.

I think I will custom build my next PC. Linux has given me a much better understanding of hardware. I think next time I will shop for all the parts myself and go with parts that are better supported by Linux. The problem is really with all this OEM crap(ex: The windows version that comes with the PC, SB Live value, etc). Over all though I was impressed that Slackware did a pretty good job with getting all my main parts of my PC working. I was really worried about that since at the time my PC was brand new. At most minimum I wanted the CDROM, ide drives and ide controllers to work so I could at least install the OS.

I would love to be involved in writting a driver for this card and helping me and possibly many others. I have pretty good expereience with C but I have never written a module/driver before.

Well if you're looking to build your own PC it might be a better idea. Start with a case and then a good motherboard and processor combo (or pick them seperatly) www.tigerdirect.com is always a reliable source for products...but www.pricewatch.com might have them a bit cheaper it's not always reliable. Pick a video card if needed, sound card if needed, a hard drive, floppy, CD-ROM and the proper cooling fans for whatever. Shopping around for the best prices doesn't always get you the best product.

A quote from http://opensource.creative.com/:

"News -- February 12, 2003

The Dell CT0200 -- The new Live 5.1 card from Dell (CT0200) is not based on the EMU10K1 chip, so the EMU10K1 driver available at SourceForge won't work with it. Fortunately, 4Front Technologies (www.opensound.com) has developed a driver."