Summary

Unlike many UNIX workstations, a typical PC nowadays comes with a sound card. This chapter describes the sound cards that Red Hat Linux supports and shows you how to detect and correct some common sound-card installation problems.

By reading this chapter, you learned the following:

Sound cards often include interfaces for CD-ROM drives and joysticks. The sound driver supports only the sound card’s sound capabilities; you need separate drivers for the CD-ROM drive and the joystick.
To use a sound card, you have to load the sound driver module. The kudzu program can detect and load the correct driver module for PCI and plug-and-play (PnP) sound cards.
If kudzu does not load the correct driver, you can use the modprobe command to load the correct driver. You should also edit the /etc/modules.conf file so that the correct sound driver is automatically loaded whenever the kernel needs it.
Both GNOME and KDE desktops come with CD Player applications that enable you to play sound tracks from audio CDs. You can use these CD Players to test your sound card.