ALSA, dev/dsp and 2.6.......again (SOLVED!)

ck42 · l33t Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 789

Ok...let me start by saying that yes, I've thoroughly searched the forums and have read, tried, and failed to get my soundcard going. I think I've read every thread there is that contains any bit of info concerning this problem. And yes, I've gone through the Gentoo ALSA page too. I've even gone through the ALSA homepage instructions for the ens1370 and tried to follow exactly what they've done...but once again, their instructions are not exactly geared for a Gentoo/Portage/2.6 situation.

The sound card is a CL SB PCI128 (ens1370).

The main issue is that even though I want to just use ALSA, the KDE sound config still yells at me that I don't have a /dev/dsp. From what I can tell, I don't want to use OSS and have done whatever I've read in my searching to do to just get ALSA going on its own.

I don't even know where to begin as far as explaining what all I've done. The best resource has been the Gentoo-ALSA guide....but it was meant for non-2.6 kernels. ie, can't emerge alsa-kernel with 2.6...and therefore the instructions fall apart at that point.

I've configured the kernel (2.6-test6) for all the little details I've read....installed as module, have devfs support, but I'm hoping someone will prompt me with some questions to see if I have in fact set the kernel config up correctly.

I've emerged all the ~x86 ALSA stuff I can. I realize that ALSA is suppose to be built into the 2.6 kernel and all. One issue I can't figure out is what is suppose to happen with the ens1370.c file. That is my soundcard driver (uncompiled of course). I can't seem to find an ens1370.o file anywhere so it appears that something is left undone in this dept.

I CAN start alsasound successfully tho....so at least _something_ is working.

I swear I've NEVER had a linux install that didn't give me trouble installing a sound card. What is it with linux and sound? Another closed-source driver issue? :roll:

GentooBox · Veteran Joined: 22 Jun 2003 Posts: 1168 Location: Denmark

I'll had the same problem some time ago...

i'll did some debugging and found out that if you remove the oss USE flag, then gentoo removes the /dev/sound/dsp device.

so you HAVE to have both ALSA and OSS in your USE flags.
then recompile ALSA.
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jaska · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2003 1:01 pm Post subject:

Did you enable OSS emulation in the ALSA section? You need that for kde to work with sound I believe.

ck42 · l33t Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 789

jaska: yes, OSS emulation is selected in the kernel.

GentooBox:

Interesting. This is something that I HAVE NOT run across yet.
But, being the total newbie to Gentoo that I am, I'm _only_ familiar with the USE flags in the sense that I kinda know what they do. I don't, however, know how to use them.
Could you please give me the correct command to do this?

something like USE="alsa -oss" maybe??

Then at that point, do I need to go back and re-emerge all the alsa stuff? Remeber too that I'm using the 2.6 kernel...which means I can't re-emerge the alsa-driver. So, does this mean I need to also recompile the kernel in order to recompile the alsa-driver built into the kernel?

I feel like Cpt. Dillan Hunt: "It's never easy..."

GentooBox · Veteran Joined: 22 Jun 2003 Posts: 1168 Location: Denmark

if you reemerge alsa, then it starts to reemerge the 2.6 kernel.

i dont know what you should reemerge in 2.6 kernel.
but try reemerge alsa-utils and alsa-libs.

a cool tool to configure your useflags with: ufed

ck42 · l33t Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 789

ufed: Kick-arse!!! thnx for that one

It looks like alsa and oss were already both selected.

I still don't see a /dev/dsp. But, I haven't remereged anthing yet. I'll try that next and see what happens.

edit: Ok...remerged utils and lib. updated modules. Still no dev/dsp.

GentooBox · Veteran Joined: 22 Jun 2003 Posts: 1168 Location: Denmark

are you sure that you mean /dev/dsp ? and not /dev/sound/dsp ?

cus, if you mean /dev/dsp. then you app looks for the sound device the wrong place.

you'll need to make a symlink (dont know if thats the right way to do it.)

GentooBox · Veteran Joined: 22 Jun 2003 Posts: 1168 Location: Denmark

oh.... by the way:

first make sure that you have /dev/sound/dsp
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ck42 · l33t Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 789

sound # ls -la
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Dec 31 1969 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Dec 31 1969 ..
crw------- 1 chris audio 14, 1 Dec 31 1969 sequencer
crw------- 1 chris audio 14, 8 Dec 31 1969 sequencer2

Nope, not there.

what's up with the 1969 year???

GentooBox · Veteran Joined: 22 Jun 2003 Posts: 1168 Location: Denmark

Dec 31 1969 - isent that the year the unix time started ?

well... it sounds like you forgot something in your kernel config.
this is my /usr/src/linux/.config

# Sound
#
CONFIG_SOUND=y

#
# Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
#
CONFIG_SND=y
CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER=y
# CONFIG_SND_SEQ_DUMMY is not set
CONFIG_SND_OSSEMUL=y
CONFIG_SND_MIXER_OSS=y
CONFIG_SND_PCM_OSS=y
CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER_OSS=y
# CONFIG_SND_RTCTIMER is not set
# CONFIG_SND_VERBOSE_PRINTK is not set
# CONFIG_SND_DEBUG is not set

#
# Generic devices
#
# CONFIG_SND_DUMMY is not set
# CONFIG_SND_VIRMIDI is not set
# CONFIG_SND_MTPAV is not set
# CONFIG_SND_SERIAL_U16550 is not set
# CONFIG_SND_MPU401 is not set

i made a symlink from /usr/src/linux-2.6.0-test7-bk2/ to /usr/src/linux
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ck42 · l33t Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 789

Here's mine. The stuff loaded as modules must've been from somewhere that recommended to do that. I've recompiled the kernel prolly a dozen times trying to find the right combination of things.

# Sound
#
CONFIG_SOUND=m

#
# Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
#
CONFIG_SND=m
CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER=m
# CONFIG_SND_SEQ_DUMMY is not set
CONFIG_SND_OSSEMUL=y
CONFIG_SND_MIXER_OSS=m
CONFIG_SND_PCM_OSS=m
CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER_OSS=y
# CONFIG_SND_VERBOSE_PRINTK is not set
# CONFIG_SND_DEBUG is not set

#
# Generic devices
#
# CONFIG_SND_DUMMY is not set
# CONFIG_SND_VIRMIDI is not set
# CONFIG_SND_MTPAV is not set
# CONFIG_SND_SERIAL_U16550 is not set
# CONFIG_SND_MPU401 is not set

GentooBox · Veteran Joined: 22 Jun 2003 Posts: 1168 Location: Denmark

if you compile them as modules, then you need to insmod or modprobe them before you use them.

compile them into the kernel since you will use them often.

compile the kernel, mount /boot/ and move the new bzImage to the /boot partition.
then reboot and see if it works.
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rabbit · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2003 9:14 pm Post subject:

As a side note too -- I had a similar problem (though not with your card... I'm using emu10k1). After re-emerging alsa-driver and such, all I had to do was reboot. For some reason it doesn't create the simlink otherwise. I'm not sure if you can just create it manually, though mine looks like this:

ck42 · l33t Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 789

Ok...kernel recompiled with all the stuff added *

Now, dmesg shows this part:

Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 0.9.7 (Thu Sep 25 19:16:36 2003 UTC).
request_module: failed /sbin/modprobe -- snd-card-0. error = -16
ALSA device list:
No soundcards found.

I also saw some stuff about alsa-oss, mixer not loading or something.

lsmod also no longer shows the alsasound. In fact, lsmod shows NOTHING.

rabbit · Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2003 9:39 pm Post subject:

Do you have your ALSA_CARDS="ens1370" variable set? I keep mine in make.conf for safety, but if you want to emerge drivers/such, you can just do:

ck42 · l33t Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 789

rabbit:

actually, I did:
env ALSA_CARDS='ens1370' ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge alsa-driver

and then did:
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge alsa-oss

the alsasound now starts again. But, still no dev/dsp or working sound.

ck42 · l33t Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 789

ok....loaded everything back into the kernel as modules and unmerged everything alsa related and started from scratch.

Everything looks 'better'.....

lsmod is now showing
Module Size Used by
snd_seq_oss 34016 0
snd_seq_midi_event 6336 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 57840 4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device 6948 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_pcm_oss 49380 0
snd_pcm 93120 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_page_alloc 9380 1 snd_pcm
snd_timer 23680 2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_mixer_oss 17568 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd 48228 8 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mixer_oss
soundcore 7360 1 snd

But...the part I'm getting stuck at is the 'amixer' step. It just gives me the error no matter what I do. I think it will do this if the INCORRECT soundcard driver is installed. But, how do I verify that the driver is the correct one? I know that it's an ens1370, but WHERE and HOW should this driver look and in which files should it be?

edit:

Just rebooted and saw a bunch of errors about sound stuff but it wasn't logged in the dmesg. Where can I see the record of the stuff that wasn't in the dmesg? or are those errors not logged anywhere?

edit2:

found the shift-PgUp feature

looks like the errors go something like this:

Loading snd-mixer-oss

Warning: Error inserting snd (lib/modules/2.6.0-test6/kernel/sound/acore/snd.o
Invalid module format

This goes on for Error inserting snd-mixer-oss
snd
soundmixer-oss
snd_timer
snd_pcm
snd_pcm_oss
etc, etc

then...........................................snd-ens1370 ****
etc, etc.

Then finally,

No mixer config in /etc/asound.state, you have to unmute your card ***(there is NO asound.state file when I looked)***

this seems to all be oss related. Hope this means something useful.

blueworm · l33t Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 962

DO NOT emerge alsa-drivers with 2.6 series kernels!
The drivers are in the kernel unlike 2.4 series.
If you install alsa-driver it will overwrite the correct driver located in
/lib/modules/2.6.0test6/kernel/sound/pci .
If it complains about incorrect module format it is because
its the wrong driver. (2.4 driver u just emerged!)
2.6 driver will be called snd-ens1370.ko
Infact all 2.6 drivers have a .ko extension whereas 2.4 have a .o extension.

All you need to change when you configure the 2.6 kernel as far as the sound goes is the pci soundcard driver the default is snd-intel8x0, you will want to choose your soundcard snd-ens1370, select as module...
All the other sound related options are ok in there default settings do not touch them.

ck42 · l33t Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 789

"will want to choose your soundcard snd-ens1370, select as module... "

As in, select it as a module in the kernel???? that driver isn't listed in the pci section in the kernel...believe me, I would've done that a LONG time ago.

So, should I unmerge the alsa-driver and then recompile the kernel so that the built-in alsa-driver resets itself?

edit:

I went ahead and unmerged anything alsa*
and
recompiled the kernel (didn't change anything - stuff still loaded as modules).

rebooted and get ONLY these errors now.

Loading snd-seq-oss
modprobe: FATAL: Module snd_ens1370 not found

Loading snd-ens1370
FATAL: Module snd_ens1370 not found

Loading: snd-seq-oss
FATAL: Module snd_seq_oss already in kernel
.
.
.
.No mixer config in /etc/asound.state. you have to unmute your card

So...got rid of all those other errors but left with these.
Not sure where to go from here.

blueworm · l33t Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 962

gitarretyp · n00b Joined: 22 Oct 2002 Posts: 36

ck42 · l33t Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 789

blueworm:

"<Sound> <Advanced Linux Sound Architecture> <PCI devices> <(Creative) Ensoniq AudioPCI 1370>

You will need to have alsa-lib and alsa-util installed...."

wow...uh, I definately do NOT have the ens1370 driver selection there. very strange!

This sounds like it could be the source of many of my problems. I DO have utils and lib installed.

Can anyone else confirm that the ens1370 driver is a selection in the 2.6-test6 kernel under:
<Sound> <Advanced Linux Sound Architecture> <PCI devices>

EDIT:

Ok...in the kernel .config file, in the sound PCI section, the ens1370 is NOT listed either.

BUT....in the /usr/src/linux/sound/pci dir, the ens1370.c *IS* there!

So...why would the menuconfig NOT list it as an option? Is there a way to just manually write this into the kernel .config file and compile the kernel?

blueworm · l33t Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 962

Do the following:-
Unpack a fresh kernel in your home directory for example.

ck42 · l33t Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 789

blueworm:

Dl'd a fresh copy of test6, unpacked it, did the stuff...

and, menuconfig shows exactly what I've been seeing all along.....NO ens1370 listing under the <Sound> <Advanced...> <PCI> category.

seriously.

blueworm · l33t Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 962

Get 2.6.0test7 from www.kernel.org