How-To: Creative X-Fi

[NullHead]

As of the writing of this message, the guide below is no longer needed and should not be used. The reason being Alsa has finally produced a working drive. Alsa's new drive is included in kernel 2.6.31.X. As of Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), the Creative X-Fi soundcard will work out of the box!

For people who still want to use the older Ubuntu releases, see GeekGirl1's guide for updating Alsa. This guide should technically work with any version of ubuntu, though I have only tested with Ubuntu 9.04.
Please note that GeekGirl1's guide does indeed work with 5.1 surround sound.

Creative 1.00 driver guide.

A note to all users:

This driver does not work with Ubuntu 8.04LTS (Hardy)
and the front panel does not work

There are reports of Creative's driver working on the new shiny Ubuntu 9.04. I've not tested this myself, but don't let that stop you. You'll apparently need the package "flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound" to get sound out of youtube/flash. To install it:

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree-extrasound

Guide: Alsa/Creative

Note: You need to reinstall this driver every time there is an update to your kernel.

To start off, download the file into your home directory. Use this command in a terminal, Applications>Accessories>Terminal, to download the file automatically into your home directory so you don't have to worry.

wget http://ccftp.creative.com/manualdn/Drivers/AVP/10792/0x0343D29A/XFiDrv_Linux_Public_US_1.00.tar.gz

Note: Downloading that file assumes that you accept and agree to Creatives ELUA.

Next we want to unpack the directory with this command, also ran from the same terminal window.

tar -xf XFiDrv_Linux_Public_US_1.00.tar.gz

We now want to change into the directory that we just created that contains the Creative drivers.

cd XFiDrv_Linux_Public_US_1.00

Install dependencies.

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`

Now we want to compile and install these drivers.

Note: If you have a PCI-E X-Fi card, read this post before continuing: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=148

make

sudo make install

You're going to need to put in your password for the last step to finish.

Make your sound settings, System>Preferences>Sound, look like this:


The final step is restarting your computer. Bookmark this page, save anything you're working on, and reboot the computer.

When the computer comes back to your desktop, you should have sound coming from your rear sound panel. The front panel does not work!

If you're having issues with your newer PCI-E XFi, then take a look here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=148
Note: That post won't really help you unless you're at least slightly knowledgeable about linux.

To enable 5.1 surround sound, see here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=432

Guide: OSS
This should work with any version of Ubuntu.

Use this guide to install OSS: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OpenSound

If OSS fails to install or update use this guild to help you uninstall it: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=105

Note: OSS should work with Ubuntu 9.04. I tried it out and it seems to work just fine for me. In fact, the audio quality seems to have improved and you no longer need to patch your sound control (the speaker in the top right of your screen).

Enjoy


Deprecated guide: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=675

[Yellow Pasque]

If OSS fails to install or update use this guild to help you uninstall it: http://4front-tech.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2054

I found that newer users became confused at the edit step, either trying to use the command 'edit' literally or opening gedit without root permissions. Specifically, in Ubuntu/Debian, the command is:

gksudo gedit /var/lib/dpkg/status

I made a post about it a while ago after a few PM's from confused n00bs.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=105

[NullHead]

Thanks! I updated the link to reflect the n00b friendly version of the guide.

[Yellow Pasque]

Some of the links are broken.

OSS4 Guide - http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...81&postcount=2
Creative's unofficial driver: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=675

[NullHead]

Some of the links are broken.

OSS4 Guide - http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...81&postcount=2
Creative's unofficial driver: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...&postcount=675

Heh thanks again, Temüjin.

By the way, are you still on vacation? That is what your avatar suggests.

[John Matrix]

Hi, and thank all of you for all the effort you are putting into this!

I feel I am kind of close to getting this to work, though I've yet to hear the first bit of sound from my Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer. I was working from the old (very long) thread, though, but the instructions there seem to be identical.

I decided that the Creative driver wasn't going to work for me, after several failed attempts (I'm running 8.04 32bit). So I did a fresh install of Ubuntu, updated all packages, and then followed Temüjin's OSS guide.

After that, I tested the sound under "Sound Preferences" in the System -> Preferences menu. At least I wasn't getting any error message, and the little moving bar appeared, suggesting that my sound is being tested, but no sound (which is working fine under Vista).
However, after the next system reboot, I got an error message when doing the same test, namely

audiotestsrc wave=sine freq=512 ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! 
gconfaudiosink: Could not open audio device for playback. Device is being
used by another application.

And osstest outputs :

Sound subsystem and version: OSS 4.0 (b1016/200807241529) (0x00040003)
Platform: Linux/i686 2.6.24-19-generic #1 SMP Fri Jul 11 23:41:49 UTC 2008

*** Scanning sound adapter #-1 ***
/dev/oss/sbxfi0/pcm0 (audio engine 0): Sound Blaster X-Fi (UAA) output
Note! Device is in use (by PID 6593/esd) but will try anyway
- Performing audio playback test... /dev/oss/sbxfi0/pcm0: Device or resource busy
The device is busy. There is some other application
using it.
Can't open the device
/dev/oss/sbxfi0/pcmin0 (audio engine 1): Sound Blaster X-Fi (UAA) input
- Skipping input only device

*** Scanning sound adapter #1 ***
/dev/oss/usb05a92643-1/pcmin0 (audio engine 2): USB sound device rec
- Skipping input only device

*** Some errors were detected during the tests ***

After I kill the esd process using System Monitor, the system again
behaves like it did after I first installed OSS, i.e. there's no
error message I when I do the tests in Sound Preferences, and osstest
outputs:

Sound subsystem and version: OSS 4.0 (b1016/200807241529) (0x00040003)
Platform: Linux/i686 2.6.24-19-generic #1 SMP Fri Jul 11 23:41:49 UTC 2008

*** Scanning sound adapter #-1 ***
/dev/oss/sbxfi0/pcm0 (audio engine 0): Sound Blaster X-Fi (UAA) output
- Performing audio playback test... 
  <left> Device returned error: Input/output error
/dev/oss/sbxfi0/pcmin0 (audio engine 1): Sound Blaster X-Fi (UAA) input
- Skipping input only device

*** Scanning sound adapter #1 ***
/dev/oss/usb05a92643-1/pcmin0 (audio engine 2): USB sound device rec
- Skipping input only device

*** Some errors were detected during the tests ***

By the way, the Onboard Sound in my system Bios is disabled.

Still I'm much happier so far with the OSS method than with the
ALSA/Creative method, since at least my sound card is being recognized.

I'd very much appreciate any hints how to finally make it work.
Thanks!

[NullHead]

Try disabling ESD through the menu system, System>Preferences>Sound>Sounds, and restart your computer.

[John Matrix]

Thanks for your reply!

I did as you told me, but unfortunately, the result is still the same. My system is running on an XPS 730, in case anyone has a similar experience.

I'm considering installing 7.10, where even the Creative driver is supposed to work, unless I'm mistaken....

[NullHead]

The Creative drive will work out of the box with 7.10. All you need is build-essential and you can easily build and install it with ease.

Could you open op a terminal and type in

dmesg >> dmesg_out.txt

and attach the .txt file that was generated in your home directory.

[John Matrix]

Would love to do that, but it seems that the file is too big (40kB) to be a legitimate attachment. Is there any portion of that file that will do?