Getting sound to work -- delicately

Ourumov · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 48

I recently started a new development job working in a Gentoo envorinmnet. Because our development boxes are set up as deployment boxes, I have to be very careful bout what I emerge. For instance, we are still running firefox .8 and netbeans 3.5.1 because the latest versions break something I guess. Because our product is a hardware/software solution, we can afford that fragility for deployment. But it makes daily use a nightmare.

I need sound. I have some less than helpful ppl in the building and they won't take the time to get my ound set up correctly. If I don't have tunes so I'm going to go insane. I've got XMMS installed but don't have a /dev/sound device. I'm using onboard sound which i assume is AC3 compatible, but don't know the exact make/model. I'm guessing I need a sound driver such as alsa so I qpkg'ed alsa and got this.

BradN · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 7:07 pm Post subject:

First, do lspci and find what sound hardware you have (lspci is part of pciutils - it should be safe to emerge this)

check to see if /proc/asound exists - if it does, alsa is loaded (but maybe not the card driver)

Then, check in /lib/modules/<kernelversion>/drivers and see if there is any sound related stuff you can try loading

If you can't find a module for your card (or can't get alsa loaded at all), you'll have to compile it into the kernel, which I would do by emerging the sources for the exact same kernel you're running now (if possible), as this will allow you to compile modules and potentially not need to update the kernel itself. If there's no sound support at all in the current kernel, you might still need to update it - i'm not sure.

an alternative way to get the drivers installed is emerging alsa-driver. I believe this might also require the kernel sources to be installed.

In any event, make a backup of your current kernel if you'll be replacing that, and make a backup of the kernel modules in /lib/modules - it should be simple enough to restore them in the unlikely event that something gets messed up badly.

once the driver is there and loaded, you'll just have to emerge alsa-lib if you haven't already and all should be well. add alsasound to the "boot" runlevel (rc-update add alsasound boot) to have alsa save/restore your mixer settings at startup/shutdown (or don't, if you're paranoid)

That's about it - good luck

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 7:27 pm Post subject:

Ourumov,

You will need about 8 kernel modules, and alsa-mixer, which will also get you alsa-lib.
There is probably no need to recompile your kernel unless your admin has removed module support. If that is the case, install another kernel beside your existing kernel and put it in the grub menu.

Assuming you will be going for additional modules, you need to choose the following in make menuconfig, this means you need the source tree for your running kernel.

Ourumov · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 48

Ourumov · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 48

[quote="NeddySeagoon"]

BradN · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 8:24 pm Post subject:

If you recompile the kernel, you'll want to actually be running that kernel (and btw, alsa-drivers doesn't install anything if you included the drivers in the kernel, but I think emerging alsa-lib will still pull in alsa-drivers to do its nothingness)

Try it running under the new kernel and see what happens (as NeddySeagoon said, just add another entry in your bootloader so you don't have to delete the old kernel).

Ourumov · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 48

Ok.. so after all this it was a matter of emerging alsa-utils, adding alsasound to init.d, and starting it. It was there all along. WEEEE MUSIC!!!!

Thanks guys!

basvanlola · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 8:34 pm Post subject:

If you're going to emerge alsa-drivers make sure that you configure the kernel with Device Drivers->Sound->Sound card support [M] and clear everything under ALSA and OSS. The guide mentioned a few post above is a bit unclear on that subject, took me a couple of attempts to get alsa-driver working...
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NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 8:39 pm Post subject:

Ourumov,

To build alsa-drivers (or any kernel modules) requires the kernel source.
emerge =gentoo-sources-2.6.10.... will get you a 2.6.10 but you need to know your -r number too.

If you are going to this bother, you may as well get a whole new kernel.
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BradN · Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 8:41 pm Post subject:

Of course, the other major gotcha with alsa is forgetting to unmute your card...

Ourumov · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 48

I was closer than I originally assumed.

1. emerge alsa-utils (no sources flag or anything)
2. rc-update add alsasound boot
3. /etc/init.d alsasound start
4. Unmute the sound using the alsamixer
5. PLAY TUNES!!!

Thanks for all the hlep people. Gentoo forums are the best.