The Sound Blaster "Live!" has one of the best supported ALSA drivers (snd_emu10k1). Yes, the mixer complexity is utterly baffling, but some people actually want control over all that. There is excellent documentation at http://alsa.opensrc.org/ for the Live!s and Audigys.
That said, what you probably meant to rant on is "Ubuntu doesn't enable OSS/Free support by default". That's a fairly obvious decision given upstream(kernel.org)'s decision to deprecate OSS/Free (while retaining the source code so that it actually is still compiled). The same rationale is used for the Ubuntu Dapper kernel: While OSS/Free is not enabled by default, the modules are still compiled and are available. You simply need to unload the ALSA drivers (prefixed with snd_ in lsmod output) and load emu10k1. ** Changed in: alsa-driver (Ubuntu) Sourcepackagename: alsa-driver => linux-source-2.6.15 Importance: Medium => Wishlist Status: Unconfirmed => Rejected -- OSS not included, likelihood of having easy-to-use sound / ever being sane drastically reduced https://launchpad.net/bugs/34604 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs