Ubuntu and Multimedia (audio, in particular)

[Michael Richter]

Ok, this is tiresome.  After all the Magic Incantations that so typify
the UNIX experience, I get the same result that typifies the UNIX
experience: nothing works as expected.

To recap, for those who haven't been following, I have two sound cards
on my system.  A crappy one built into the laptop (Sony PCG-FRV23) and
an external USB-based one.  (Sound Blaster MP3+) which is better (if
still not particularly spectactular).

The system just switches around at random between these two cards. 
System sounds come out of the MP3+, for example, quite reliably.  Some
games, however, only go out the crappy laptop speakers.  And Totem
just decides at random which of the pair to use every time it's run. 
(And there's still the problem of making AC3-encoded files play on my
non-AC3 system.)

Windows '98, an operating system over seven years old, doesn't have
these problems.  I tell it which card to use and it uses it.  (And it
plays AC3-encoded files over stereo.)  This without anything more
complicated than putting in a CD for the Sound Blaster when I plug in
the card.

What will it take to get my system working reliably through *ONE*
*SINGLE* *SOUND* *CARD*?!  (And not the crappy internal one either.) 
What will it take to get it to do what Windows, the Grand High
Unreliable Evil One, has been able to do for edging on to a decade?!

How, for example, do I tell ALSA not to look at the damned internal
card ever again?  Not to even glance in its direction when booting. 
To pretend the damned thing doesn't even exist.  That would be a
start, I think, on the long path toward getting Ubuntu to accomplish
what Windows 98 figured out over seven years ago.  (I don't have a
Windows 95 disk lying around or I'd be able to report on its handling
of multimedia as well.  I suspect it's far superior to Ubuntu,
however.)