Hello! Since late December I've been using Ubuntu 9.10, and was hardcore about getting rid of windows altogether. Unfortunately, in all that time, I was unable to get my sound working properly, and my dvd drives have problems also. A buddy told me about Ultimate, thinking it might fix my issues automatically because of the enhanced features and added content. I formatted and did a complete install two days ago, and I'm still having the same problems. My main focus is Blender, GIMP, and games, and I like to listen to music while I work. I got some advice from the ubuntu forums, but nothing helped. Here's what I'm dealing with:
1)Sound: I have Realtek audio on the motherboard, which played music and ran audio from videos great, but I had NO sound in games. On a piece of advice, I disabled the onboard audio and put in my old 3 year old SB Audigy. Then I started getting sound in games, but all of my sound from games, music players, movies, or anything with sound from the web started having issues of distorted cutting out. Basically, I have sound for about a minute, then it garbles, and I lose all sound. When this happens during a video, the app playing the video locks up. When this happens during a game, the game still plays great (silently), but when I try to exit or quit, the game will lock up. On another piece of advice, I installed everything in Synaptic that had to do with Pulseaudio, which had NO change. It's very frustrating! I was going to turn the onboard audio back on and remove the Audigy, hoping to at least get music working again, but in the ubuntu forums I was told the Audigy should work much better since it has better linux support. Shortly after that, I was told it shouldn't matter which audio I run, it should just work. It doesn't.
2)dvd-roms: I have a DVD reader and a DVD burner. When I go to System>computer it shows two icons for cd/dvd drives. However, only the burner will read discs. Both will open and close, and both will spin up and flash the light, but only the burner actually makes anything happen. I can use data, audio, and movie dvds, but of course after a minute or so of running audio or video the sound will chop and player will lock up. Anyway, I got a response to check my slave/master jumpers, and they are correct, and the drives both appear as they should in the bios. Even though the burner will read, if I try to burn a disc whatever burning software I use will say it can't find a burning device.
In the few months I was running ubuntu steady, I was trying to install/uninstall some audio package or third-party driver at least once a week. I tried uninstalling alsa and pulse, and reinstalling one or the other, and being new I'm pretty sure I screwed things up beyond repair. I have minimal knowledge of the terminal, but I'm getting better. As of today I have a brand new install of Ultimate Edition 2.3. The only changes I made to anything were adding two games, smb4k (so I could access my network HDD), and getting my internet working. I have made no serious changes to anything yet. Can anyone tell me what I can do from a fresh install to MAYBE make these items work? And please, if you respond, treat me like a noob. Thanks in advance for your time and any help!