Sound not working [SOLVED]

Karlhungus · Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 4:32 am Post subject: Sound not working [SOLVED]

I've recently upgraded my kernel to the 2.18-r3 and came into a sound problem which i'm having trouble diagnosing. It worked fine in 2.17-r8, i've gone though the guide again to no avail, maby somebody can offer some hints as to what i'm missing

I noticed that /etc/init.d/alsasound status wasn't started, after i started it that didn't change anything though, and I got no errors. I've tried alsaconf which doesn't detect any PCI cards (which seems like the obvious thing...), but as far as i can tell i'm using the same compiled in device driver...

batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

make sure the card driver is compiled in the kernel as a module. You seem to have it compiled in. Not sure if it makes a difference, but it is a least different from what the guid suggests

Karlhungus · Posted: Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:16 pm Post subject:

weird, i thought compiling it into the kernel was a valid option. I'll try it as a module when i get home)

terminal9 · Apprentice Joined: 12 Oct 2006 Posts: 157

statically linking alsa drivers is OK, I've used one such system for months (alsaconf is no use in this case).
I suggest you check the difference between the outputs of following commands:

Karlhungus · Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 12:21 am Post subject:

No luck, i've tried as modules, with one thing i did notice -- i'd get a distinct "click" when alsa started -- which is familar, however no /dev/dsp was created)

Then went back to kernel. grep of my .config files looks the same:

batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

using the old kernel still works? I'm kind of out of ideas, except suggesting you to use the alsa-drivers. I mean, if it is a kernel bug, then don't use the kernel drivers...

Karlhungus · Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 12:32 pm Post subject:

I've tried alsa-driver, no /dev/dsp is created and now i get this message from dmesg (repeated)

batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

your error doesn't make any sense to me...
First things first:
In the following order (important)
- Did you recompile your kernel without any alsa support (deselect it there), copy image to /boot, etc
- Did you re-boot your machine
- Did you emerge the alsa driver as described in the gentoo alsa guide? did you configure your make.conf and all as required (as described in the guide)?

Karlhungus · Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 1:49 pm Post subject:

Karlhungus · Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 10:03 pm Post subject:

ok:

Karlhungus · Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:21 pm Post subject:

Well the vortex2 card worked like a charm (back to statically linked in the kernel -- is this a bad idea?)..

I'm not sure what the other problem was... hardware issue?

btw what's the protocol here, i didn't really solve my problem in a useful way do i mark the thread as solved?

arabis · Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 2:07 am Post subject:

batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

Karlhungus · Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 1:45 pm Post subject:

It wasn't that I had 3 cards. When i first compiled the VIA driver and the Vortex2 driver into the computer i just had to use /dev/dsp1 for the Vortex2 card or /dev/dsp (for the non working VIA on board card). This worked

I did recompile the kernel without the other cards (just so i didn't have to go set the device to /dev/dsp everywhere), in the end.

Truthfully I dont' know why i had the soundblaster in there, and i think the BT card was a guess i put in when i was compiling my kernel for the PVR150 i've got in there.

swooshOnLn · Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 1:51 pm Post subject:

did you re-emerge alsa-libs?
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Karlhungus · Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:47 pm Post subject:

Ugh, it's not mentioned in the guide however it is mentioned here (grumble grumble). I'm tempted to just leave it statically compiled into the kernel with the Vortex2 driver. Is there any reason no to do this (i suppose getting to the bottom of the origional problem is a nobel goal)?

swooshOnLn · Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 8:58 pm Post subject:

you should re-emerge alsa-libs if you swich from alsa-driver to in-kernel, and visa versa
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Karlhungus · Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 1:31 am Post subject:

It looks like i might try to figure this one out via modules anyway. the Vortex2 it seems only controls the volume from the "surround" channel (even master doesn't seem to effect it).

batistuta · Veteran Joined: 29 Jul 2005 Posts: 1384 Location: Aachen

Karlhungus · Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 12:23 pm Post subject:

It seems i didn't search enough at first: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-359657-highlight-vol+volume+bar+alsa.html.

Karlhungus · Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 6:55 pm Post subject:

Well I tried the VIA card again (via the driver method) this time re emerging the alsa-libs as well and i get a dmesg error after running alsa-conf which is slightly different but basically the same:

Karlhungus · Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 8:29 pm Post subject:

Went back to vortex in statically linked -- again. Module didn't seem to work (could be i had it plugged in the wrong jack -- there's 6 on the back no colour coding!). In anycase i used the first jack and now master controls sound volume.

Karlhungus · Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 4:15 pm Post subject:

Appears to be solved in latest kernel (not actually sure which kernel solved it -- currently running gentoo-sources 2.6.23-r3) -- i decied to switch back to the onboard via ac97 reciently -- for spdif output, and it just worked.

robertjsharp · n00b Joined: 30 Dec 2006 Posts: 20

In case you get tripped up by this one again I may have the answer

. I've had this before and when I moved to 2.6.24 it re-appeared. Seems to be caused by sound modules being loaded in two different places and something else (e.g. ivtv) being loaded in between. Solution that worked for me was to stop udev from loading sound and rely on alsasound to load all the required modules. (If you check the startup screen when alsa is loaded see if all the modules are listed or just some of them...)

To stop udev was not easy: need to blacklist the snd module (e.g. snd_hda_intel). I commented out everything in /etc/modules.d/alsa and added blacklist snd_hda_intel and also added the same line to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.

If in doubt, stop alsasound from loading modules (/etc/conf.d/alsasound) and keep blacklisting and rebooting until lsmod shows no snd modules at all. Then re-enable alsasound module loading and it should all work fine...