Problems using the sound card on My Thinkpad

[Noah Dain]

On 12/27/05, David <david at kenpro.com.au> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 26, 2005 at 11:27:07PM -0600, David Strauss wrote:
> > On Mon, 2005-12-26 at 23:21 -0400, Ryan Thompson wrote:
> > > I have been using Ubuntu Linux for all of 3 and a half hours when I
> > > posted this.  I am trying to listen to some CD's but the system is
> > > telling me that It can't find my sound card.  This makes no sense to me
> > > because at the login screen I get the Startup sound.  Can anyone point
> > > me in the right direction?
> >
> > There are different sound systems in Linux, namely OSS, ALSA, ARTS, and
> > ESD. GNOME in Ubuntu uses ESD by default. Try running your program with
> > ESD (easiest option) or configuring ALSA (better option). There are
> > guides to configuring ESD and ALSA together on the forums.
> >
>
>
> which guide do you suggest? I'm having serious trouble with sound and everything
> I've tried so far has ended in hisssssss :(
>
> David
>

If you get the login sound, then you most likely have a sound device
that does not do hardware mixing, thus only one process can use the
sound device at any given instance.  This is where sound daemons like
esd, artsd, jack, and that newer one come in (polyp?)

The sound daemon grabs the sound device and then other processes bind
to the sound daemon, allowing multiple processes to output sound
concurrently.

However, not all programs support the various sound daemons, so this
"solution" sux.

Alternatives:
1) use oss.  Not recommended but oss does mixing in software if need be.
2) use alsa oss emulation.  Better than choice 1, as oss is deprecated
in favour of alsa.
3) use alsa mixing libs via a .asoundrc file.

I prefer choice 3, with alsa oss emulation available for older apps
that don't do alsa yet.  This covers all bases without having to deal
with a sound daemon.

But what .asoundrc file to use?  We first need to know what chip your
sound device is using.  As sound is working, post the output from
"lsmod".  You can also post the output from "lspci -v".  Once that is
determined, we can play the "rumage around alsa's site trying to find
a .asoundrc file that may very well work for you" game.

:-D

--
Noah Dain
"Single failures can occur for a variety of reasons that have nothing
to do with a hardware defect, such as cosmic radiation ..." - IBM
Thinkpad R40 maintenance manual, page 25