how to: install Alsa with creative XFi support in Ubuntu written by: Lee Richmond posted on: 09 August 2009
Recently I had been having sound issues in Ubuntu but here is how I overcame them:
Step One: Download the latest version of the alsa-unstable-snapshot.tar.gz from here to your home dir.
Step Two: Now we need to make sure our system is able to compile these files by typing the following commands into your terminal:
sudo apt-get update
apt-cache search linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo apt-get install build-essential
Step Three: Next we need to make sure we're in home dir in Terminal and extract the files before we start to compile them:
cd ~
tar -zxf ALSA-driver-unstable-snapshot.tar.gz
cd ALSA-driver-unstable-snapshot
Step Four: Now you should be in your new extracted alsa dir, which contains all the relevant files, now we need to make sure the correct permissions are granted to the files we need:
sudo chmod 700 configure
Step Five: Now we start with the configuring and installation process:
first we need to run the configure file so in terminal type:
./configure
once that has finished the next step is to make the files:
make
and finally we install the package:
sudo make install
once this has finished you should restart your machine.
Step Six: at this point you will probably think that not much has happened, the reason for this is that by default the Alsa Drivers are muted, so now we need to adjust the volume via the Alsa mixer, so in our terminal type:
alsamixer
and using your left and right keys to move between the controls and the up and down keys to adjust them, adjust your settings accordingly.
now you need to check that you are using the Alsa drivers so again in terminal type:
gnome-sound-properties
and check that all the boxes read Alsa and thats it your Alsa drivers are now installed and will work with your lovely Creative XFi sound card.
End Note: IN the past I have found that PulseAudio seems to conflict with the Alsa Drivers i.e. sound cutting out etc. if you experience the same problems, all I did to resolve this was remove the PusleAudio drivers:
sudo apt-get remove pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils
NB I believe this has since been sorted in Ubuntu 9.10.
