There are a lot of great sound-related applications for Linux, from basic audio drivers and sound servers to sophisticated mixers, editors, and special effects engines. Which is not much consolation for the user who just wants sound to work on her system, and these days everything old is new again--once again, getting sound to work correctly, or at all, is almost as fun as in the olden days. Only these days it's because of "progress," not because of immaturity. This is due to PulseAudio becoming the default sound server on an increasing number of Linux distributions