Hi, welcome.

A few comments:

1. The RT kernel is the linux real time kernel, and you can get it with any distro. How your particular distro decides to provide it for you is one of the things that make distros different. Since Ubuntu is debian-based, it uses apt-get (or synaptics gui front end) as the package management system. I'm not sure if you can apt-get the real-time kernel from there. On gentoo, one runs 'emerge gentoo-sources', which grabs the kernel source tree and places it in /usr/src/linux. For gentoo, then you need to configure and compile your own kernel. Ubuntu was designed with the idea that users would never really compile their own kernel. I left ubuntu because I couldn't get alsa or jack to work properly, and felt as detached from the system as I did on windoze.

2. Is Alsa started? I imagine Ubuntu should start alsa on startup, but look into whether or not your alsa drivers have been configured properly. It will probably be different for you, but something like '/etc/init.d/alsasound status' will tell you if its started or stopped. if its stopped, rerun that command and replace status with start, or --verbose start if it fails to start.

3. You probably don't know if the alsa drivers are compiled into the kernel or as loadable modules, but should find out. I found that in-kernel alsa drivers just don't work, so I compile them all as modules and have them load at boot. 'lsmod |grep -i snd' should show if alsa drivers are loaded, and which ones. if you don't get anything that way, try 'modprobe -l | grep -i snd'. This will list all available LKM (loadable kernel modules). Perhaps the soundblaster driver has not been loaded. If you find the right module, but its not showing in lsmod, do 'modprobe <module-name>'. That will load the driver.

4. Check the Alsa wiki and site. Check them again. Also look at kernel.org:
http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/sound/alsa/ALSA-Configuration.txt

5. If you can't get things going under Ubuntu within a week, ditch ubuntu (personal opinion). Linux audio is NOT easy, nor for those not willing to work to make it work. Try other distros like openSUSE, arch linux, gentoo, centOS. Ubuntu is a great intro, but you may want something more flexible to handle problems like these. Also keep in mind that a tough install also usually has more rewards, since you must learn your machine up front.

best,
justin

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 8:09 PM, <webmaster@seconnecticut.com> wrote:

I have two Ubuntu computers, one running 8.04 and the other running 9.04.
Since Ubuntu is said to offer a RT kernel and a version that has been
customized for audio work, I was surprised to find that it is not so easy to
configure audio in Ubuntu. Debian recognized my SoundBlaster audigy card
immediately and used it. For Ubuntu the small app that is supposed to select
the sound card doesn't seem to do anything.

So I started asking questions of Google and found that there are a number of
people who are having difficulty configuring Soundblaster on Ubuntu. It
looks to be a chronic problem.

Aside from that SlashDot.org had a link to this last week, although it seems
to be vintage 2007.

http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2007/05/welcome_to_the_jungle.html

There is a map of Linux Audio Applications that looks to be useful
documentation. Any comments on the rather critical note ?

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