How to Activate Xtreme Audio Card Under Ubuntu: 10 Steps

Community Q&A

Creative Labs X-Fi Xtreme Audio is a PCI-Express sound card that may help if the sound device on your motherboard has no appropriate Linux driver. Because of the different chipset it was the last card of X-Fi series to be supported under Linux. Its sound processor is much more limited than similar device in other X-Fi cards. It is not necessarily bad as such card is much cheaper and fully appropriate if you mainly use it for tasks like Skype. This guide may be general enough to help other problematic cards working.

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Steps

1. 

   1
   Add Advanced Linux Sound Architecture driver repository: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-audio-dev/ppa

2. 

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   Update it: sudo apt-get update

3. 

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   Install Advanced Linux Sound Architecture driver package: sudo apt-get install linux-alsa-driver-modules-$(uname -r)

4. 

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   If you get no error messages to these commands, it is done, just reboot.

5. 

   5
   If you get the error message in response to the previous command, repository may not have the driver for your kernel version and you need additional steps to get the things right:

6. 

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   Use tool like synaptic to search for a package linux-alsa-driver-modules. Check its version number. At time of writing, the number of even latest version may be below the versions number of your kernel – this is the root of all problems.

7. 

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   Similarly, search for linux-image-generic.

8. 

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   Pick the latest version that is present in both Linux image and Advanced Linux Sound Architecture driver modules. Install both Linux kernel and Advanced Linux Sound Architecture drivers having this version number.

9. 

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   Reboot (while booting, select the kernel with your version from the boot menu).

10. 

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    If the sound now works, you may remove your newer kernel to make the “sound capable” kernels default.