Problems using sound

[Noah Dain]

On 12/28/05, David <david at kenpro.com.au> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 28, 2005 at 07:03:29PM -0500, Noah Dain wrote:
> > On 12/28/05, David <david at kenpro.com.au> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > 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
> > > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, I'm not getting any sound at all (other than hiss). The
> > > output of lspci -v is:
> > >
> > > 0000:00:0b.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy LS
> > >         Subsystem: Creative Labs: Unknown device 100a
> > >         Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
> > >         I/O ports at d400 [size=32]
> > >         Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2
> > >
> > > Can you give me a clue where I find the chipset/driver info?
> > >
> > > many thanks...
> > >
> > > 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
> > > >
> > >
> >
> > whoops, jah urnot teh original postar lolz omgz mai bad lolz
> > (and now for something completely different...)
>
> wow... where did you learn that cool language ;-)
>
> >
> > there seems to be quite a bit of hate and discontent surrounding the
> > audigy series under linux.
> > lets see if the driver is even registering and grabbing an interrupt:
> > 'cat /proc/interrupts'
>
> david at test:~ $ cat /proc/interrupts
>            CPU0
>   0:  174549850          XT-PIC  timer
>   1:      56877          XT-PIC  i8042
>   2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade
>   5:     378237          XT-PIC  eth0
>   7:          3          XT-PIC  parport0
>   8:          1          XT-PIC  rtc
>   9:          1          XT-PIC  acpi
>  11:     214240          XT-PIC  uhci_hcd:usb1, ohci1394, snd_ca0106
>  12:     250541          XT-PIC  i8042
>  14:     652791          XT-PIC  ide0
> NMI:          0
> LOC:          0
> ERR:          0
> MIS:          0
>
>
> > if so, see if the card itself if seen by the system at all: 'cat
> > /proc/asound/cards'
>
> david at test:~ $ cat /proc/asound/cards
> 0 [CA0106         ]: CA0106 - CA0106
>                      AudigyLS [Unknown] at 0xd400 irq 11
>
>
>
> >
> > if that all seems to work, I'd rmmod all the snd* modules, "tail -f
> > /var/log/messages", and then "modprobe snd-ca0106.ko" and check the
> > messages output for interesting entries.
>
> I tried something different here.... does this tell you what I need to
> know?
>
> david at test:~ $ lsmod | grep snd*
> snd_ca0106             27172  3
> snd_ac97_codec         72188  1 snd_ca0106
> snd_pcm_oss            46368  0
> snd_mixer_oss          16128  2 snd_pcm_oss
> snd_pcm                78344  3 snd_ca0106,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
> snd_timer              21764  1 snd_pcm
> snd                    48644  10
> snd_ca0106,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
> soundcore               9184  2 snd
> snd_page_alloc         10120  2 snd_ca0106,snd_pcm
>
> david at test:~ $ sudo modprobe -vn --first-time snd-ca0106.ko
> FATAL: Module snd_ca0106.ko not found.
>
> regards...
>
> David.
>

you need to leave off the .ko extension, otherwise every module will
give that error back.

just try: "modprobe -r snd-ca0106" - if this fails you'll have to try
removing the snd_modules in reverse order by dependency, whatever that
order may be(?)
then:  "modprobe snd-ca0106"
then: "dmesg|tail -n 30"

there should be an entry in dmesg for the inserting of the module, and
then i'm guessing some errors or additional info regarding it as well.


--
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