The Flow of Consciousness

I know Hardy is due out in less than a month’s time, but I got a Creative Sound Blaster X-fi XtremeGamer on super rebate a few weeks ago and, dammit, I want sound on Linux!

Unfortunately, Creative only recently released specifications to OSS and ALSA. OSS has a driver already in its newest release, but OSS and Ubuntu have never played well together. Most of Ubuntu’s applications prefer ALSA or ESD. Creative did release an ALSA driver a while ago, but only for 64-bit distros.

Fortunately, I’m running Ubuntu Gutsy amd64, so I can use the driver. Fear not, though, one user on Ubuntu Forums has tried it on 32-bit and reported success. He’s refining the process, though, and figuring out how exactly he did it.

NullHead, wolfc, and some others on Ubuntu Forums refined a process by which folks can install the Creative X-fi driver. Unfortunately for Gutsy-using folks, the process requires a kernel recompile because the Gutsy kernel uses SLUB instead of SLAB.

However, the process does work. After compiling the kernel, there’s a a few simple steps and a single patch which customizes the source for Ubuntu users.

Read the thread at Ubuntu Forums entitled [HOW-TO] X-fi beta driver.

It’s really nice to have sound in Ubuntu after not having it for approximately two weeks. I’ve been hopping onto another computer when I need it and using that other computer as my jukebox.

PulseAudio is the new default sound server in Ubuntu Hardy (8.04 for those readers who are out-of-the-loop), but it retains its compatibility with ALSA, OSS, ESD, and various other sound servers in Linux. Hopefully, ALSA will have a driver out soon.

Apparently, a company called Auzentech is working on higher-quality drivers for Windows for its licensing of Creative’s X-Fi technology. It’s also working on Linux drivers, but the ETA isn’t until Q4 2008. If Auzentech can pull it off, you bet your sweet bippie I’ll trade my XtremeGamer for one of its cards. I like to support those who support Linux