Comment 49 for bug 131711

 I have to agree.I'm a complete Linux (but not Unix) newbie. Having just acquired an old system box I thought I'd give Linux a play, so put Ubuntu Gutsy on it.

Then plugged in my USB sound card. Couldn't find anything about how to configure sound cards, so tried recording. Was told that "Your audio capture settings are invalid. Please correct them in the Multimedia settings". Gusty doesn't have Multimedia settings, so tried the Sound settings instead. Found the card, and changed the "chat" setting (and why "chat" - the last thing I want to record?) to point to it. Then clicked "Test" and got the Failed to construct pipeline...." message.

Poked around the conferences and fora and found that I had to enable ESD (whatever that is?) and found it was already enabled. Enabled everything in the volume control. Still the same message.

So can we please have some support for USB sound in both directions? Or at least some documentation? The Help file for Sound Preferences does not correspond with the software, and I cannot find any tutorial documentation on what the various components of the sound system work and fit together. (Get onto the Alsa-project site, and you're bombarded with techno-babble on the first page).

And, as Casey J Peter wrote, in Windows it just works first time.

Sorry if this sounds like a whinge, but I'm finding Linux VERY frustrating to work with.