w3v, surround soud and (separate question) linux

Hi all,
first, am I right in thinking that this beast (read w3v) i've bought does surround sound? If so what kind of kit do I need to plug into it? Any recommendations (not too pricey and available in the UK please)?

Secondly, has anyone had any luck with linux on the w3v? I've been using ubuntu on it and it's horribly unstable. If anyone's got a system working that doesn't crash every 5 minutes I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks for any help you can give me
Jeremy

 

The w3v has S/PDIF output, so depending on the speakers, you can get surround sound from your speakers.

What speakers do you have and is it 2.1 or 5,1 or 7.1?

If it doesn't support S/PDIF, then your best bet would be buying the Creative Audigy ZS 2 for laptops.

 

I've run Knoppix (Linux bootable off CD - www.knoppix.com) for a few hours, trying various applications, and it seemed very stable. Some things were slow, but I'm assuming thats since knoppix basically installs into RAM, and I've just got the 512MB still. Also, there was no setting for 1280x768, but I would assume there is a way (or another distribution) to fix that.

 

ahh sorry i wasn't clear. I only have stereo stuff at the minute and some good headphones. I'm thinking about getting some kit for surround sound but wondered what i'd need for using with the output on the w3v (seeing as you've now confirmed my belief that if does do multi channel output)...

thanks
Jeremy

 

yeah that's strange I tried knoppix too and had no problems with it off the cd. You have to fiddle around with your xorg.conf to get it to do widescreen and I'm not sure knoppix has the flexibility to allow you to do that.

If it runs from memory (aka knoppix) maybe it's the sata stuff linux doesn't like... hmmm mewonders.

thanks
Jeremy

 

Usually the ubuntuforums are fairly good with support. Does it just freeze or does it give any error messages? Do you notice it happening when you are doing anything specific?

 

yeah they were all very helpful. Helped get my sound working, my graphic card working all my browser plugins working. Unfortunately there are a lot of people having problems with the ubuntu version of xorg with xserver crashes and ati cards, and the ubuntu choice of kernel parameters seem to make it rather tempermental with the power saving features.