Sound Blaster AE9

Issues & Assistance
1

I just built a new system and want to dual boot Win10 and Garuda. I have a Creative Sound Blaster AE9 sound card and would like to know if it is supported.

2

Welcome :slight_smile:
Did you check manufacture website if they have Linux driver?
At least you can install and check if it work OOTB. :slight_smile:

3 Likes
3

Yup, very easy to find out via the live installer environment.

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4

I did and I did not a Linux driver.

5

Hey, a bit late to this post, but I’m leaving my two-bits here since I’ll be getting an AE-9 in about a week.

Sound Blaster does not supply Linux Drivers for the AE series cards currently. Support for the AE-7 has been mainlined in kernel 5.10, with reports of AE-5 working as well with issues here and there.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=SoundBlaster-AE-7-Linux
My ZxR + daughterboard has mediocre support at-best, despite having mainline kernel support as well.

Skimming through the ALSA Projects site, they do not have any info on the AE series under the vendor info either.
https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/wiki/Matrix:Vendor-Creative_Labs

The two things currently keeping me from going all-in and ditching Win10 are my incoming AE-9, and the current state of anti-cheat and linux gaming. I’d LOVE to contribute help on getting that AE-9 up and running in Linux, but wouldn’t know where to start. I’m no programmer, but I’d have the hardware that I’d be happy to aid in testing with.

EDIT: Found an official statement from Creative, buried in the support page here
https://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=200207&c

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That mention of a thread on the “official subreddit” turns up a thread with this response from Creative:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SoundBlasterOfficial/comments/fftbqj/ae9_linux/

Hi,
Thanks for your feedback. This can be considered when Linux becomes a more commercial operating system in future. - Creative_Colin

Of note, that was about 3 months before work on getting the AE-7 support mainlined really started drumming up:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SoundBlasterOfficial/comments/guasr7/soundblaster_ae9_basic_linux_drivers/

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