5.1 Speakers & External Sound Card

[atorch]

Hi everyone,

I wrote the System 76 people an email a few weeks ago, asking about audio jacks, sound cards & 5.1 speakers. Here're the most relevant bits from their answers:

"Our laptops come with a headphone jack and a mic jack. A 5.1 audio system will not fully connect to our laptops. You would end up loosing two or three speakers in the output."

"An external sound card might work. Honestly, though, we've never done any testing with them on our laptops.

Something like this... http://cgi.ebay.com/EXTERNAL-5-1-USB-SOUND-AUDIO-BOX-CARD-ADAPTER-OPTICAL_W0QQitemZ140192652213QQihZ004QQcategoryZ31 492QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
...looks promising. It connects via USB (and I know USB headphones work on our laptops).

You might get one from ebay cheaply to experiment with."

I'm considering buying a S76 laptop, but I'm not going to buy one first and then experiment -- I was hoping someone here could help me out.

Has anyone successfully connected 5.1 speakers to a S76 laptop using an external sound card?

Thanks,
--Adrian

[asmiller-ke6seh]

Something like this... http://cgi.ebay.com/EXTERNAL-5-1-USB-SOUND-AUDIO-BOX-CARD-ADAPTER-OPTICAL_W0QQitemZ140192652213QQihZ004QQcategoryZ31 492QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
...looks promising. It connects via USB (and I know USB headphones work on our laptops).

I noticed a CD labeled "DRIVER" in the photo.

I might have doubts about this as a Linux solution for that one reason, alone.

[atorch]

So... impossible? Does S76 plan to release any new laptops (possibly with three audio jacks) in the near future?

[thomasaaron]

No, it is not impossible.

There is a fair chance that this card would be recognized by ALSA without the windows drivers. That's what ALSA does -- supports as many sound cards as it can, including USB sound devices. However, the chances of it working without some fiddling are slim.

Your best bet is to find the model numbers of some external USB 5.1 sound cards and then google "Ubuntu <card model number>" and see what others have tried and if they've had some success getting them up and running. Chances are, you'll find something that works. If you can find a little bit older card, that would probably be better (since your chances increase that the ALSA project may have already dealt with it). Doing this, you might just find one that works out of the box.

Like I said, I've done no testing with them, but if you Google "ubuntu laptop 5.1 sound" you'll see that a lot of people have.



It will be a while before we refresh our laptop line-up. But I've not heard any murmurings from R&D on it.