Starting Out: Configuring Your Sound and Video Cards

An impression exists that Linux is weak in multimedia (especially sound card) support. This is largely because of some mixed results for the very popular Creative Labs (SoundBlaster) products under Linux. Today, multimedia support is great and continually improving.

SUSE Linux supports most current sound cards out of the box. During the SUSE Linux installation, YaST should recognize and give you a default configuration for both your sound and video cards, enough to get you up and running. Although you can further configure both cards during the setup, it's better to get your system going and then tweak later through YaST.

Sound support for SUSE Linux is provided through ALSA, the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. ALSA began as a simple project to write better drivers for a single sound card, and it blossomed. It has been supported in the kernel since v2.5, and been the default sound system since v2.6. It supports everything from consumer sound cards to multichannel interfaces and will play multiple audio streams simultaneously if you want.

YaST handles all the configuration tasks for ALSA, and you are no longer required to load the kernel modules manually. This is the topic of the next section.

Configuring Sound Cards in YaST

Most settings for audio and video are set in YaST. To do this, open YaST and click Hardware to start the configuration. When you click Sound, YaST checks your current configuration and displays all detected sound cards.

You can set some advanced options for the card, but unless you are trying to solve some problem and know what to change, you should leave these alone. Click Volume to change the default volume settings for every channel on your card. The Start Sequencer check box loads kernel modules for MIDI sounds at boot, and is checked by default.

If YaST does not automatically recognize your card, you can add it manually in this dialog box.

Choose the card from the menu or use the Search tool to find your card. Click Next to confirm the changes.

Reconfiguring your video card and monitor should also be done automatically if you change your hardware. Clicking Video Card and Monitor in YaST's Hardware section will tell you the current settings. Click Change to run SaX2 (see Chapter 4, "Further Configuration with Yast2 and Sax2," to learn more about configuring the X Window System with SaX2).

Tip

Need to test your sound quickly? Head for the KDE or GNOME Control Center and set a system notification. In KDE, go to Sound & Multimedia, and then System Notifications. In KDE System Notifications, select KDE Is Starting Up and click the > icon to play the sound. In GNOME, open Multimedia (if necessary) and then Sound. Select the Sound Events tab and pick a random sound (you must have the gnome-audio package installed for the default sounds to work).