SoundBlasterX G6

The SoundBlasterX G6 is a Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) marketed for gaming audio. Creative Labs themselves don't support Linux. DACs in generally are supported by the Kernel and projects like soundblaster-x-g6-cli reverse engineered many of its features.

Installing

The following commands can be used to identify the device:

# dmesg

usb 3-8: Product: Sound BlasterX G6
usb 3-8: Manufacturer: Creative Technology Ltd

$ lsusb

Bus 003 Device 011: ID 041e:3256 Creative Technology, Ltd Sound BlasterX G6

To allow regular users access to the device add a rule:

/etc/udev/rules.d/50-soundblaster-x-g6.rules

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="041e", ATTRS{idProduct}=="3256", TAG+="uaccess"

The package linuxblaster-control^AUR integrates one.

Troubleshooting

Microphone muted

Unmute the channels in ALSA: External Mic. You may also want to mute all the others to avoid cross-talk or hearing yourself. linuxblaster-control^AUR comes with a script that automates this as the workaround has to be applied on every restart.