The ALSA 1.0.21 driver package update brings the Creative X-Fi Linux driver officially along with a horde of updates to the other drivers and more. The CMI8788 Oxygen driver (used by sound cards like the Razer Barracuda AC-1) now includes support for HDAV S/PDIF inputs and when it comes to sound cards now works with the ASUS Xonar Essence ST.

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (known by the acronym ALSA) is a Linux kernel component intended to replace the original Open Sound System (OSS) for providing device drivers for sound cards.

ALSA has been the default Linux sound system for many years, and it is a perfectly capable audio subsystem even in this modern era of fancy new things. Carla Schroder shows us how to to control Linux audio with ALSA.

A lot of people seem to be experiencing issues with ALSA apps (like Flash) on PulseAudio-enabled systems. Common issues include programs locking/"hogging" the ALSA sound device (prevents other apps from mixing and using the audio device) and also apps trying to use the ALSA software mixer (dmix).

Today we're going to dig into ALSA, the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, because I think it's the best tool for managing your Linux sound devices. It's good for managing multiple sound devices, and it works in all Linux environments including other window managers, or no X Windows at all.

This page summarizes things I learned while trying to understand and use the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) on my Debian GNU/Linux system. I would be happy to receive suggestions to improve or extend this web page.

Using the same ALSA upgrade script as for 1.0.20, but with some minor tweaks, you can upgrade to ALSA 1.0.21 by running a simple sh file.

For instructions on how to run the script and other MUST READ info, please check our ALSA 1.0.20 upgade script post.

Once you do that, you can download the ALSA 1.0.21 upgrade script....[...]

Oh the fun! I removed package pulseaudio from my system this morning and reverted to alsa, thinking this would fix my sound lag problems on Doom 3 and Quake 4.

Support for the Creative X-Fi sound cards on Linux has been a mess to say the least. The good news is that as of today there is a merge-able version of the Creative X-Fi driver for ALSA.