This article explains setting up of PCI Creative Ensonic 1371 soundcard . You can either make Linux detect the PCI soundcard using its default soundcard drivers OR use 3rd party drivers to make the whole job easy. I have used the 3rd party drivers called ALSA drivers which are very popular. This can be found at www.sourceforge.net

This article, unlike other articles is to the point, without a lot of explanation. Explaining each of the lines would simply make this article too long. And most of the guys just want to listen to their mp3s as fast as possible.. without a lot of theory ;-)


My Setup :

1.	This explanation caters to only 1 sound card - PCI Ensonic Sound Card. For other sound cards you will have to refer to the ALSA documentation and find respective commands to be entered in the various configuration files
2.	I have to start the mixer every time I start my machine for the card to get activated. The mixer by default is muted every time Linux starts. I have yet to figure a way around this. This happens only in GNome. If I use KDE as my Desktop Environment instead of GNome I have noted that the mixer is started by default so its no problem.

Procedure :

1.	Unzip the ALSA Sound Drivers by typing bzip2 -dc alsa-driver-0.5.10.tar.bz2 | tar xf -
2.	This would create a new folder in the existing folder. From within the new folder type the following ./configure make install
3.	Once the above commands execute successfully, edit the /etc/conf.modules file. You have to add the following alias char-major-116 snd options snd snd_major=116 snd_cards_limit=1 alias snd-card-0 snd-card-ens1371 options snd-card-ens1371 snd_index=0 snd_id="card1" alias char-major-14 soundcore alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0 alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
4.	Then type the following at the prompt (bash) ./snddevices
5.	Finally run the following command modprobe snd-card-ens1371

Thats it. Now your soundcard should run perfectly well. In case you are having any problems, please do mail me with all the details of the problem you are facing.