No sound with alsa and gentoo-dev-sources 2.6.5 r1

Maxwells Silver Hammer · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 69

Hey,

a few days ago I installed gentoo (kernel 2.6.5 r1 dev-sources). My sound doesn't work. I looked through the gentoo linux alsa guide and read lots of forum discussions where people had the same problem. Couldn't get it to work though.

My kernel configuration looks like this:

John5788 · Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 12:49 am Post subject:

what is your sound card and did you configure the device?
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John5788

Maxwells Silver Hammer · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 69

Is there an easy way to figure that out with a linux tool? For the first time in my life I just looked in the handbook of my computer but there's nothing but pointless information. I guess that's why I never look at it

.
I haven't configured my sound card anywhere. I didn't install any specific sound card modules in the kernel. In /etc/make.conf I left it to via82xx.
The command

gentood · Apprentice Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 157 Location: Sweden

Try this command: lspci.

If it doesnt find the command you need to emerge pciutils.

Maxwells Silver Hammer · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 69

Output of lspci:

PatBrugge · n00b Joined: 10 Feb 2004 Posts: 25

Like do you see any soundcard in that output?
I dont so I guess you have forgotten to build any drivers for it into your kernel.
next time a "lspci | grep audio" will give an cleaner output course it will only lookup your sound device (just a small tip).

Maxwells Silver Hammer · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 69

But what sound drivers could I build into my kernel?

John5788 · Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 6:29 pm Post subject:

do you know what sound card you have? if you do, use this http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/
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John5788

Maxwells Silver Hammer · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 69

Alright, I'm real confused now.

Linux:
I type in the command
modprobe -c | grep -E "^[[:space:]]*alias[[:space:]]+snd-card-[[:digit:]]"
I get this:
alias snd-card 0 snd-via82xx

But I know now after looking through lots of stuff that I have a soundcard ES1869.
I checked out that matrix at the alsa project's website and found out that I have to install the module snd-es18xx into the kernel. I did that and my computer finds it if I look for modules with:
find /lib/modules/2.6.5-gentoo-r1/ -type f -iname '*.o' -or -iname '*.ko'

I updated the /etc/modules.d/alsa file. It now says
alias snd-card-0 snd-es18xx

I made a modules-update and everything looked fine. I started alsasound:
/etc/init.d/alsasound start

I received this error message:
Loading: snd-via82xx
FATAL: Module snd_via82xx not found.

snd_via82xx was the module that was once written down in /etc/modules.d/alsa. It was never compiled into the kernel and I changed the alsa file so it should start the real module snd-es18xx. What could be wrong? Any ideas?

Thanks for all the help, I really appreciate that!

John5788 · Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 12:27 am Post subject:

try recompiling the kernel with es18xx compiled in the kernel and remove via82xx from being built as a module and off the the kernel
_________________
John5788

Maxwells Silver Hammer · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 69

Alright. Via82xx was never in the kernel. I figured out something.
Before I changed the file
/etc/modules.d/alsa
earlier, I made a copy of the file called
/etc/modules.d/alsa.copy

Well, after changing the alsa file, the alsa guide tells you to do modules-update. This step merges the alsa file into the /etc/modules.conf file. The funny thing is, that it doesn't only merge the alsa file, it also merged my copy of it (alsa.copy). That's why it still tried to load the Via82xx module and gave me an error message because it couldn't find it.
Now that I deleted the alsa.copy file, it merged the one configuration into modules.conf and the file is good now.

Next problem though

After all this I started alsasound:
/etc/init.d/alsasound start

This is the output:

Maxwells Silver Hammer · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 69

WOOOOOOOOOOOW!!!
YEAH!

I RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IT WORKS
IT WORKS
IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alright, for everybody who might have the same problem, here's what's up!

My soundcard is connected through some PCI to ISA bridge or whatever. Everything what I configured concerning my sound was right! BUT THERE WAS ONE THING I DIDN'T THINK ABOUT! Tonight, 0.47AM, I'm about to say screw this, when I thought I should maybe check my kernel config one more time. And there it is! It was in the menu Device Drivers -> Plug and Play support! "ISA Plug and Play support"!!! I'm not the hardware expert, but when I checked the Knoppix config files earlier, I read something about a PCI to ISA bridge, so I compiled this ISA Plug and Play support in the kernel.
And................... IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!! LINUX RULES!!!!!! KNOPPIX RULES!!!!!!!!!! GENTOO RULES!!!!!!!!!!!! ALSA RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!

I'm gonna go ahead and enjoy my speakers now

Thanks to everybody who tried to help me on this and the other stuff that I need help on in this forum!

Deathwing00 · Posted: Thu Jun 24, 2004 12:28 am Post subject:

Moved from Multimedia.

twoblink · n00b Joined: 30 Apr 2004 Posts: 14 Location: Earth

I've compiled ISA PnP support etc.. Still no sound

Any other ideas? Using 2.6.6

Should I trade up for 2.6.7?

Maxwells Silver Hammer · n00b Joined: 20 Jun 2004 Posts: 69

I don't think changing the kernel will make a difference.
What soundcard do you have?

[Lx]-=Mystify=- · Apprentice Joined: 16 Mar 2004 Posts: 180

@maxwell:

'modules-update' merges ALL files in '/etc/modules.d' into '/etc/modules.conf.
so if you make a copy of one file into that folder, then both files will be merged...