Creative SB Live 5.1 (Dell) Options?

[Frank K <frankk pacifier com>]

List please help me understand Creative SB Live 5.1 (Dell) Options.

Thanks to some offline posts I found the Creative Open site. They have 
the Creative SB Live driver for non-5.1 cards. They refer 5.1 refugees to 
4front who apparently sells drivers. 4Front has a bogus link to the 
source code.
Some Shrike messages seemed to imply that ALSA was to come up with the 
new audio drivers.
I'm not certain if the stock RH9.0 kernel contains ALSA support. Please 
yes or no on this on this point.
The Creative SB Live 5.1 is said to use a different DSP chip than the 
Creative SB Live non-5.1.
If there's no free driver (source or binaries) for the Creative SB Live 
5.1, how would I go about building one of my own?
Apparently the Creative SB Live non-5.1 source code is available. I would 
need in addition the specs for each of the different chips. Would this be 
a fools errand?

Regards, Frank K