At one point I had surround sound working using this tutorial. I have creative elite pro x-fi sound card.

But every time a linux header update comes out I have to reinstall my sound drivers. The X-fi driver 1.0 never worked for me and will not install properly. However, the 1.03 drivers do. They provide all the channels in the mixer but in sound preferences are separate. By changing them I can get sound to come out of the individual speakers.

But this last update broke everything. Now I'm back to 2 channel. I've always managed to repeat the install steps and get surround working again. But this time is different.

So here is the output of a few things. Let me know if you see anything i need to change.

Code:
~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: XFi [Creative X-Fi], device 0: ctxfi [Front/WaveIn]
  Subdevices: 8/8
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 0: XFi [Creative X-Fi], device 1: ctxfi [Surround]
  Subdevices: 8/8
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 0: XFi [Creative X-Fi], device 2: ctxfi [Center/LFE]
  Subdevices: 8/8
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 0: XFi [Creative X-Fi], device 3: ctxfi [Side]
  Subdevices: 8/8
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 0: XFi [Creative X-Fi], device 4: ctxfi [IEC958 Non-audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Daemon.conf

Code:
# This file is part of PulseAudio.
#
# PulseAudio is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
# it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
# the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
# (at your option) any later version.
#
# PulseAudio is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
# WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
# General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
# along with PulseAudio; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307
# USA.

## Configuration file for the PulseAudio daemon. See pulse-daemon.conf(5) for
## more information. Default values a commented out.  Use either ; or # for
## commenting.

; daemonize = no
; fail = yes
; disallow-module-loading = no
; disallow-exit = no
; use-pid-file = yes
; system-instance = no
; disable-shm = no
; shm-size-bytes = 0 # setting this 0 will use the system-default, usually 64 MiB

; high-priority = yes
; nice-level = -11

; realtime-scheduling = no
; realtime-priority = 5

; exit-idle-time = 20
; module-idle-time = 20
; scache-idle-time = 20

; dl-search-path = (depends on architecture)

; load-default-script-file = yes
; default-script-file = 

; log-target = auto
; log-level = notice

resample-method = src-linear
; disable-remixing = no
; disable-lfe-remixing = yes

; no-cpu-limit = no

; rlimit-fsize = -1
; rlimit-data = -1
; rlimit-stack = -1
; rlimit-core = -1
; rlimit-as = -1
; rlimit-rss = -1
; rlimit-nproc = -1
; rlimit-nofile = 256
; rlimit-memlock = -1
; rlimit-locks = -1
; rlimit-sigpending = -1
; rlimit-msgqueue = -1
; rlimit-nice = 31
; rlimit-rtprio = 9
; rlimit-rtttime = 1000000

; default-sample-format = s16le
; default-sample-rate = 44100
; default-sample-channels = 6

default-fragments = 8
default-fragment-size-msec = 10
Default.pa

Code:
## Automatically restore the volume of streams and devices
load-module module-device-restore
load-module module-stream-restore

### Load audio drivers statically (it's probably better to not load
### these drivers manually, but instead use module-hal-detect --
### see below -- for doing this automatically)
#load-module module-alsa-sink
#load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0
#load-module module-oss device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-oss-mmap device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-null-sink
#load-module module-pipe-sink

### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available
.ifexists module-hal-detect.so
load-module module-hal-detect tsched=0
.else
### Alternatively use the static hardware detection module (for systems that
### lack HAL support)
load-module module-detect
.endif

### Automatically load driver modules for Bluetooth hardware
#.ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
#load-module module-bluetooth-discover
#.endif

### Load several protocols
.ifexists module-esound-protocol-unix.so
load-module module-esound-protocol-unix
.endif
load-module module-native-protocol-unix

### Network access (may be configured with paprefs, so leave this commented
### here if you plan to use paprefs)
#load-module module-esound-protocol-tcp
#load-module module-native-protocol-tcp
#load-module module-zeroconf-publish

### Load the RTP reciever module (also configured via paprefs, see above)
#load-module module-rtp-recv

### Load the RTP sender module (also configured via paprefs, see above)
#load-module module-null-sink sink_name=rtp format=s16be channels=6 rate=44100 description="RTP Multicast Sink"
#load-module module-rtp-send source=rtp.monitor

### Automatically restore the default sink/source when changed by the user during runtime
load-module module-default-device-restore

### Automatically move streams to the default sink if the sink they are
### connected to dies, similar for sources
load-module module-rescue-streams

### Make sure we always have a sink around, even if it is a null sink.
load-module module-always-sink

### If autoexit on idle is enabled we want to make sure we only quit
### when no local session needs us anymore.
load-module module-console-kit

### Enable positioned event sounds
load-module module-position-event-sounds

# X11 modules should not be started from default.pa so that one daemon
# can be shared by multiple sessions.

### Load X11 bell module
#load-module module-x11-bell sample=bell-windowing-system

### Register ourselves in the X11 session manager
#load-module module-x11-xsmp

### Publish connection data in the X11 root window
#.ifexists module-x11-publish.so
#.nofail
#load-module module-x11-publish
#.fail
#.endif

### Make some devices default
#set-default-sink output
#set-default-source input
But here is the weird part.. speaker test output

Code:
speaker-test -Dpulse -c6 -twav

speaker-test 1.0.20

Playback device is pulse
Stream parameters are 48000Hz, S16_LE, 6 channels
WAV file(s)
ALSA lib pcm.c:2211:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM pulse
Playback open error: -2,No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2211:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM pulse
Playback open error: -2,No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2211:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM pulse
Playback open error: -2,No such file or directory
ALSA lib pcm.c:2211:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM pulse
Playback open error: -2,No such file or directory
The speaker test used to work... before the last update. It is getting annoying that I have to reinstall the sound drivers every time a header update comes out... but never so annoying until now, when repeating the steps I've done time and time again didn't work.

Hopefully ubuntu will get better support for sound in the near future.