Kubuntu - Sound Problem
 

I've been using MEPIS for a few weeks now and I decided that I would like to try a few more distros, so I decided to try kubuntu. The installation went great and I really like kubuntu except for one problem, I can't get any sound at all :(. my sound worked fine in MEPIS and I have no idea whats wrong with it now. I think it may be a problem with not having the correct drivers, and if so where would I get them? I couldn't find any likely looking ones in Adept. I've tried most off the sound emitting programs that come with kubuntu and they all seem to be able to load and play files.

My sound card is a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 btw.

I know very little about linux so please try to keep your answers as simple as possible (although any help would be much appreciated).

Try playing something through the terminal and post any errors that may come up, that might point us in the right direction.

You might need to configure the sound card. The easiest way to do this is to type alsaconf into a terminal. I'm pretty sure this needs to be with sudo, though it was a couple of months ago since I've had to do this. You might need to install an extra package, I think it's called something like alsa-utils and I think you might need alsa-base as well. Also it seems obvious, but you should check to make sure things aren't muted, I've done a couple of installs that start with the sound muted for some reason. Another thing worth checking might be to make sure your in the right groups to access the sound. Type groups to list all of the ones you're in.

I just tried typing sudo alsaconf into the terminal but it simply came up with command not found :(. I appear to be in the 'audio' group, I assume that is the correct one for accessing sound and I have both alsa-utils and alsa-base installed. I don't think anything is muted as I checked both kmix and alsamixer.

however I can get a small sort off beeping noise out of the speakers when I select and deselect the audigy analogue/digital button in KMix

EDIT: I get the same noise when I put sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils start into the terminal, and it gives me a message saying setting up alsa [ ok ] also, when I enter lspci, my sound card comes up as Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs: Unknown Device 0008 while Kmix reads it as an Audigy 2 value [unknown] despite the fact it is a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4.

sound
 

try locate alsaconf i.e.
/usr/sbin/alsaconf

Actually I was a bit surprised that it looks like alsaconf isn't part of ubuntu. I did a bit of searching on the ubuntuforums and I found this:

So I guess that's out as an option for trying to troubleshoot.

Did you try to play something in the terminal for any error messages?

yes, I just had a look myself and it would appear that there is no alsaconf in ubuntu. I haven't tried to play something in the terminal (as I have no idea how to do that:) )

Find any kind of sound file, though if you haven't setup mp3 codecs yet it probahly wouldn't be too helpful trying this with an mp3 file. In the terminal type "kaffeine [path of file] For example I can play a sound with kaffeine /usr/share/sounds/gaim/arrive.wav (Actually I can't since I don't have kaffeine on my computer, but you get the idea) I can't remember exactly what media players are in kubuntu, but I think it's kaffeine. If not just replace that in my instructions.

I can play sound files like that in kaffeine, the problem is that they don't come out through my speakers.

I'm totally confused

I was hoping it might say give some kind of error message in the terminal that could give a hint as to why it wasn't working. Might try playing it again, but with sudo so it has root permissions. If that works then we'll have to figure out what has the wrong permissions. Other than that I'm out of ideas, since I've already suggested anything else that I ever needed to do to get it working.