“If you were hoping to use a Creative X-Fi series sound card
under Linux in the near future, think again. Last June we told you
that Creative was planning on Q2’2007 for delivering a binary blob
to support the X-Fi series along with delivering full support for
ALSA and OpenAL v1.1 with EAX effects. Creative has now updated
their open-source page saying that their closed-source X-Fi Linux
driver will not even be in a public beta until the end of third
quarter or fourth quarter this year. With the beta not even being
available until the end of the year, we would be very surprised if
Creative Labs will even deliver a stable X-Fi driver this year at
all. What’s the reason for this delay? It’s due to Microsoft’s
Vista…”