headphones

[Erik Schmidt]

so, I plugged in my headphones to stop the ubuntu start up noise from  
sounding, and thus not annoying my english class, but, to my  
surprise, the headphones did not seem to register with ubuntu and the  
sound played straight through the speakers of my computer, not the  
headphones

what?!?!?!?!?

so, what's the deal with that?  how do I get my headphones to work  
with ubuntu?

TIA

-Erik