This ASUS P4B533 motherboard has a C-Media 8738 sound chip. The asus ftp site (ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/asus/misc/audio) has a file called cmlinux.zip that hopefully allows the s-pdif functions (etc) to work. The make instructions in that file's readme do not jive at all with the directory structure I found on my system . For example, the readme says: "Backup the Config.in (sic) and Makefile in the sound driver directory(/usr/src/linux/driver/sound)"
But, nothing is there. There is no 'driver' directory.
However, it seems that what I want may be here: /usr/share/alsa/cards/CMI8738-MC6.conf
Being some what new to Linux*1, I really don't have a clear plan for compiling this correctly. And I *really* don't want to blow anything up. Has anyone any experince with this particular sound card and Knoppix/Debian?
P.S.: dmesg shows:
PCI: Found IRQ 9 for device 02:03.0
cmpci: found CM8738 adapter at io 0xa800 irq 9
cmpci: chip version = 055
cmpci: Enable SPDIF loop
Well OK! But, shouldn't it work?
tia,
some putz
*1 - but not to C, I started writing little C progs 15 years ago. Unfortunately, writing in C was something I didn't need for work, so I left it behind for a while, you might say.

W&T 50519 Pure.box 3 USB Linux Thin Client Industrial PC Embedded Server
$135.00
Ubuntu Server 26.04.1 LTS Bootable USB Flash Drive – Latest September 2026
$13.99
OPNsense pfSense 8-Core Atom C3758 2.2GHz 8GB DDR4 64GB SSD 8x NIC QAT AES VPN
$115.00
All New Ubuntu 26.04 LTS Linux Bootable USB Flash Drive
$15.95
Start9 Server Pure 32GB 4TB Intel i7 Node StartOS — Box + PSU
$649.00
OPNsense Firewall VPN QAT 8-Core Atom C3758 2.20GHz 16GB DDR4 128GB SSD 8xNIC
$175.00
NVIDIA Jetson TK1 + Intel NUC Compute Cluster Tray w/ Netgear 16-Port Switch
$499.99
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS – 3 DVD Set Desktop - Server - Studio Edition - Grade AAA+
$13.99
BOSGAME E4 Air Mini PC, AMD Ryzen 5 3500U 8GB DDR4 256GB SATA SSD
$169.99
SQL Server 2022 Enterprise 96 Core License & DVD Unlimited CALs with CoA
$284.99