Sound card woe

[Adrian McMenamin]

I decided to use Ubuntu on my new PC because everybody on my LUG mailing
list raved about it and because I was having serious problems with my
distro of (previous) choice - Fedora. 

And, generally speaking, I'm pretty impressed. But I've had one serious
difficulty - with my AC97 sound.

The Ubuntu box has a soundcard built in to the mobo
and I also have a box with the same model of mobo running Fedora. The
Fedora box plays sound, the Ubuntu one doesn't.

Is it likely that the soundcard is stuffed on the Ubuntu one? Are there
any tests I can run to see what might be wrong? Is there something I
have missed at a higher level (eg ALSA configuration - though I have
unmuted everything afaics)?


Ubuntu box: 

>From dmesg:

[4294696.497000] via82xx: Assuming DXS channels with 48k fixed sample
rate.
[4294696.497000]          Please try dxs_support=5 option
[4294696.497000]          and report if it works on your machine.
[4294696.497000]          For more details, read ALSA-Configuration.txt.

>From lspci:


0000:00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc.
VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60)

I seem unable to get Ubuntu to play anything

On a Fedora box with the model of mobo (bought from the same shop at
more or less the same time - they are the same!). I can play sounds.

>From dmesg:

via82xx: Assuming DXS channels with 48k fixed sample rate.
         Please try dxs_support=5 option
         and report if it works on your machine.
         For more details, read ALSA-Configuration.txt.

>From lspci:

00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc.
VT8233/A/8235/8237 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 60)

On the Fedora box:

[root at dragoneye ~]# lsmod | grep snd
snd_via82xx            33025  0
gameport               21321  1 snd_via82xx
snd_ac97_codec         80829  1 snd_via82xx
snd_seq_dummy           3781  0
snd_seq_oss            42945  0
snd_seq_midi_event     10177  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                78033  5
snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss            53105  0
snd_mixer_oss          18241  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm               112201  3 snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              42437  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc         10825  2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
snd_mpu401_uart        12481  1 snd_via82xx
snd_rawmidi            36321  1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device          9165  4
snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
snd                    62021  11
snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
soundcore              12449  1 snd

On the Ubuntu box:

adrian at bossclass:~$ lsmod | grep snd
snd_mpu401              6344  0
snd_seq_dummy           3844  0
snd_seq_oss            29440  0
snd_seq_midi            8608  0
snd_seq_midi_event      6656  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                44688  6
snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_via82xx            25792  1
gameport               14472  2 analog,snd_via82xx
snd_ac97_codec         72188  1 snd_via82xx
snd_pcm_oss            46368  0
snd_mixer_oss          16128  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                78344  3 snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              21764  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc         10120  2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
snd_mpu401_uart         6784  2 snd_mpu401,snd_via82xx
snd_rawmidi            22816  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device          8204  5
snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
snd                    48644  14
snd_mpu401,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
soundcore               9184  1 snd


The two kernels are (obviously) different:

Ubuntu: 
adrian at bossclass:~$ uname -a
Linux bossclass 2.6.12-9-386 #1 Mon Oct 10 13:14:36 BST 2005 i686
GNU/Linux

Fedora:
[root at dragoneye ~]# uname -a
Linux dragoneye 2.6.13-1.1532_FC4 #1 Thu Oct 20 01:30:08 EDT 2005 i686
i686 i386 GNU/Linux