While you can use your default audio setup on Linux, advanced users may choose to experiment with some additional configuration settings.
To help you configure your audio setup on Linux, Maya includes a template configuration file and a test application. You can tweak audio settings in the template file, then play sounds using the test application to determine whether your audio setup will work in Maya.
The alsoftrc.sample template configuration file is meant for advanced users only. (Locate this file in the /bin sub-directory wherever Maya is installed. By default, /usr/autodesk/maya<version>/bin/.) This file describes and lets you set various OpenAL parameters to tweak the audio configuration. If you plan to use the template file, copy it to ~/.alsoftrc.
If you choose to modify the template configuration file, you can then run the runTime/bin/testMayaAudio test application to play a sequence of sound files. The test application is set up with the exact same libraries that Maya uses. If the sounds play successfully using the test application, your audio configuration will also work in Maya.
When you run this application, you will see output similar to the following:
testMayaAudio: audio library (MAYA_AUDIO_LIBRARY) 2 OpenAL testMayaAudio: media_path /Volumes/Emerald/aw/main/build/optim/runTime/Maya.app/Contents/bin/media/ testMayaAudio: OpenAL audio device (MAYA_AUDIO_OPENAL_DEVICE) Not defined testMayaAudio: Starting sound playback