Alsa becoming a PITA.

FcukThisGame · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 776 Location: /lost+found

I've been toiling with kernel-based ALSA for three weeks now, with no success. http://pastebin.com/783607here is my kernel config. (2.6.17-r6)

I've enabled the alsa useflag and I also have 'ALSA_CARDS="ca0106" ' in my make.conf. The initscript starts with no errors. None of my channels are muted, but I still have no sound, and xmms, mplayer, etc. all give me 'no sound device' error messages.

Any idea what it could be? and any other files you need to see?

EDIT: fixed link...whoops

EDIT: Fixed fixed link.

suicidal_orange_II · Apprentice Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 299

Not got any specific advice but ALSA_CARDS is only used by alsa-driver from portage and not needed if you are going to use in kernel alsa. With that said have you tried alsa-driver? it tends to be a bit newer and may fix your problem.

Another thought - do you/did you use oss before? It is possible that all your programs are defaulting to it and therefor cant find the device. Try changing the output device in xmms (being the easiest to change). I assume from the asking about files you are new to Linux so dont be offended if you arent

Suicidal_Orange

FcukThisGame · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 776 Location: /lost+found

suicidal_orange_II · Apprentice Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 299

oops, looked at your post count, your far from new

alsa-driver can be a pain what with having to recompile it with every kernel upgrade but I wouldnt describe it as buggy. If you could sit it out 2.6.18 should be out soon, but that is of little comfort if you want sound today.

What kernel did you upgrade from? not that I can offer any help (I dont have a soundblaster) but many do and this may help them. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful

Suicidal_Orange

FcukThisGame · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 776 Location: /lost+found

It's a SB Live! 24-bit:

PaulSorensen · Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 8:43 pm Post subject: What does aplay say?

I'd try to play a .wav file with aplay (a native alsa command line player) - just to see what it's output is.

[EDIT]By the way - I've been using the kernel alsa for a long time without any problems.[/EDIT]

agent_jdh · Veteran Joined: 08 Aug 2002 Posts: 1783 Location: Scotland

Seriously mate, and I've helped enough folk with ALSA problems on various hardware, use the alsa-driver package (as well as oss) instead of the kernel ALSA drivers. It matches the versions of the other alsa ebuilds that will get installed (e.g. alsa-lib, alsa-utils, you probably want alsa-oss as well). Make sure you have oss and alsa enabled in your USE flags - and maybe aoss, as the new mozilla-launcher uses aoss to launch e.g. firefox.

Once you've cleaned your ALSA kernel modules out, follow the Gentoo ALSA guide _to the letter_ (and I can't stress that enough) - start from the section where you use the alsa-driver ebuild. The only thing you want compiled in your kernel is the basic initial sound support option (even as a module). The alsaconf util should configure everything for you after you emerge alsa-driver.

Once you get your head around how alsa configures and initialises itself, it all becomes clear.

Also, have you configured your packages e.g. xmms/mplayer to use the ALSA driver for sound output? You might awnt to use gmplayer (or xine, which I prefer to mplayer), to set the sound driver output to alsa.

Does any of the alsa playback utils mentioned in the Gentoo alsa guide work?

Some soundcards (and again, I don't have a soundblaster) have some obscure options that need to be set correctly in alsamixer to get sound to work - it's not always just a matter of checking that everything's unmuted. Play around with the other options - there are probably loads for your SB Live.
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pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

I had problems (don't recall what exactly) and solved them by using alsa-driver. Might be worth a shot.
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FcukThisGame · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 776 Location: /lost+found

suicidal_orange_II · Apprentice Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 299

<*>Sound card support
< > Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
< > Open Sound System (DEPRECATED)

And emerge away. Good luck with it

Suicidal_Orange

FcukThisGame · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 776 Location: /lost+found

PaulSorensen

They are useful to do interesting stuff in alsa - but can also make it do things that are unexpected (for example, not working).

By the way, did you try running aplay on a wav file?

FcukThisGame · l33t Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 776 Location: /lost+found

nope. Don't have any .wav files. I've got an mp3 and youtube stuff in firefox that won't play audio; gaim doesn't make any sounds either. If I turn my speakers all the way up i get white noise, where i never got that before; i think the soundcard is recognized, just programs and such can't use it...?
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padoor · Advocate Joined: 30 Dec 2005 Posts: 4185 Location: india

i had no sound problem so far in all my 32 installs of gentoo with 2005.1 and 2006.0 profiles. i have always used kernel based alsa and hence the alsa driver would not emerge. i have seen that for the sound to start we have to emerge alsa-oss also.

i have now made a new install with stage3-2006.1 profile and the sound does not budge with what ever i do. no sound from any of the sound players like mplayer xmms kplayer noatun vlc etc.

but funny is that flash sound turns up ok and i can play the audio strem of highwaycountry.com which is based on flash .
the ymessenger makes all sound out put ok

i dont see what s wrong with all the other players.

alsaconf does not find any sound card or pnp device. thats so in the other install of gentoo in which sound is working ok.
my system is p4 845 motherboard with onboard audio.

i tend to think its a profile -kernel relation problem. if so 2006.1 which kernel to use.?
i have tried all previous kernels upto 2.6.17-r7 with no sound output.
but all of them work fine with 2006.0 profile.

any solution for me???

edit: i just found aplay wlfw.wav plays nicely.
wlfw.wav is a recording of country music station WLFW.com radio.
why alsaplayer is discarded now? it was working nicely for me.

playing of aplay works means what ? how i can make my other players work?
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darklegion · Guru Joined: 14 Nov 2004 Posts: 468

JeliJami · Veteran Joined: 17 Jan 2006 Posts: 1086 Location: Belgium

Sachankara · Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:50 pm Post subject:

I have a suggestion that few, or no-one ever mentions. Use the kernel drivers and compile them into the kernel, not as modules. It has never failed me, on dozens of installations, computers and sound cards (SoundBlaster, built in Intel/VIA, etc).
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NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 12:58 pm Post subject:

For help with sound please post the following information.

The multimedia line(s) from lspci.
The output of

avnielknight · Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:17 pm Post subject:

I have the cheapo Audigy LS that uses ca0106. I've gotten it to work by emerging alsa-drivers and then running alsaconf.

Of course this card is terrible all around.....
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Matteo Azzali · Retired Dev Joined: 23 Sep 2004 Posts: 1133

padoor · Advocate Joined: 30 Dec 2005 Posts: 4185 Location: india

i changed the profile to 2006.1/desktop and emerged mplayer again. it emerge 4 more files and now it works and so the kmplayer.
now emerging vlc and xmms they also may work now.
i am not able to set use flags correctly.
the change of profile has now solved the audio.
i hope i dont have to emerge everything of kde 3.4 and 3.5
the system seems to be morestable than profile 2006.0 updated to today..
it means to me arts is not necessary to make sound work. i think.
will get back if more problems come up.
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agent_jdh · Veteran Joined: 08 Aug 2002 Posts: 1783 Location: Scotland