FIGURE 6.1 Use the options provided to control and manage settings for all
your sound output and input devices.
Sound Formats
A number of formats exist for storing sound recordings. Some of these
formats are associated with specific technologies, and others are used strictly
for proprietary reasons. Ubuntu supports several of the most popular sound
formats, including the following:
RAW (.raw)—RAW is more properly known as headerless format, and
audio files using this format contain an amorphous variety of specific
settings and encodings. All other sound files contain a short section of
code at the beginning—a header—that identifies the format type.
MP3 (.mp3)—This is a popular commercially licensed format for the
digital encoding used by many Linux and Windows applications. MP3 is
not supported by any software included with Ubuntu by default, but you
can easily install software that supports MP3. In fact, the first time you
try to play an MP3 file, Ubuntu asks whether you want to install the
codec needed and walks you through the whole simple process.
WAV (.wav)—This is a popular uncompressed Windows audiovisual