sound problems

[mike_the_bike]

Knoppix works a treat but lack of sound is killing me (I'm trying to build a media PC!). I know the hardware works cause I got sounds under XP. I've tried most suggestions on these pages but nothing seems to work. I installed with the cheat codes knoppix26 pnpbios=off lang=us alsa wheelmouse, I also tried alsa=intel8x0 , but still nothing. Any ideas ??

PS1 the modem also doesn't work if anyone has any ideas.
PS2 I also posted this in the lounge area but I suspect that was the wrong place (sorry).

Yours Mike Robinson

# dmesg | egrep -i '(audio|sound|snd|linux|processor|ac97|alsa|tv)'
Linux version 2.6.7 (root@Knoppix) (gcc-Version 3.3.4 (Debian 1:3.3.4-3)) #2 SMP Wed Jul 28 04:25:36 CEST 2004
Processor #0 15:3 APIC version 20
Kernel command line: auto BOOT_IMAGE=Linux ro root=301 ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off nomce pnpbios=off alsa lang=us wheelmouse
Detected 2395.371 MHz processor.
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode... Ok.
SELinux: Initializing.
SELinux: Starting in permissive mode
Total of 1 processors activated (4751.36 BogoMIPS).
Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
SELinux: Registering netfilter hooks
ACPI: Processor [CPU1] (supports C1)
Linux Kernel Card Services
Linux video capture interface: v1.00
bttv: driver version 0.9.14 loaded
bttv: using 8 buffers with 2080k (520 pages) each for capture
bttv: Bt8xx card found (0).
bttv0: Bt878 (rev 2) at 0000:02:09.0, irq: 16, latency: 64, mmio: 0xf7c00000
bttv0: detected: (Askey Magic/others) TView99 CPH06x [card=38], PCI subsystem ID is 144f:3000
bttv0: using: Askey CPH06X TView99 [card=38,autodetected]
bttv0: gpio: en=00000000, out=00000000 in=00ffffff [init]
bttv0: using tuner=1
bttv0: i2c: checking for MSP34xx @ 0x80... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA9875 @ 0xb0... not found
bttv0: i2c: checking for TDA7432 @ 0x8a... not found
tvaudio: TV audio decoder + audio/video mux driver
tvaudio: known chips: tda9840,tda9873h,tda9874h/a,tda9850,tda9855,tea6300,tea6420,tda8425,pic16c54 (PV951),ta8874z
bttv0: registered device video0
bttv0: registered device vbi0
bttv0: PLL: 28636363 => 35468950 .<6>ip1394: $Rev: 1224 $ Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>
bttv0: add subdevice "remote0"
Linux agpgart interface v0.100 (c) Dave Jones


# lsmod
Module Size Used by
nls_cp437 9600 1
snd_mixer_oss 18688 0
snd 47588 1 snd_mixer_oss
lp 13096 0
af_packet 21000 0
efs 15236 0
nls_iso8859_1 7936 1
ntfs 111468 0
via_agp 10624 0
sworks_agp 10784 0
sis_agp 9732 0
nvidia_agp 9628 0
intel_mch_agp 11664 0
intel_agp 19612 0
efficeon_agp 10016 0
ati_agp 10252 1
amd64_agp 12360 0
amd_k7_agp 9612 0
ali_agp 9088 0
agpgart 29868 11 via_agp,sworks_agp,sis_agp,nvidia_agp,intel_mch_ag p,intel_agp,efficeon_agp,ati_agp,amd64_agp,amd_k7_ agp,ali_agp
autofs 18048 1
eth1394 21512 0
tuner 20492 0
tvaudio 23308 0
bttv 141996 0
soundcore 11232 2 snd,bttv
video_buf 19844 1 bttv
i2c_algo_bit 12552 1 bttv
v4l2_common 8960 1 bttv
btcx_risc 7944 1 bttv
i2c_core 22016 4 tuner,tvaudio,bttv,i2c_algo_bit
videodev 11264 1 bttv
parport_pc 37568 1
parport 36936 2 lp,parport_pc
8250 34480 0
serial_core 22528 1 8250
sbp2 24712 0
usb_storage 61120 1
ohci1394 33796 0
ieee1394 302008 3 eth1394,sbp2,ohci1394
ohci_hcd 22276 0
uhci_hcd 31760 0
usbcore 95840 5 usb_storage,ohci_hcd,uhci_hcd
ds 17284 0
yenta_socket 20480 0
pcmcia_core 56772 2 ds,yenta_socket
thermal 14352 0
processor 19776 1 thermal
fan 7052 0
button 8984 0
battery 11916 0
ac 7564 0
ide_scsi 17156 0
rtc 14920 0
ext3 110440 1
jbd 69284 1 ext3


# lspci -v
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc: Unknown device 5833 (rev 02)
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 8107
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64
Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
Memory at f7f00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Capabilities: <available only to root>

0000:00:14.5 Multimedia audio controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP150 AC'97 Audio Controller
Subsystem: Asustek Computer, Inc.: Unknown device 810d
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, slow devsel, latency 64, IRQ 17
Memory at fe800000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]

0000:02:09.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 02)
Subsystem: Askey Computer Corp. MagicTView CPH060 - Audio
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16
Memory at f7d00000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]

0000:02:0e.0 Communication controller: Intel Corp. 536EP Data Fax Modem
Subsystem: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 1000
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 17
Memory at fdc00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
Capabilities: <available only to root>


# alsamixer
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such file or directory


#could not cut and paste from this tool so typed
#Sound - KDE Info Center

Sound Driver:3.8.1a-980706 (ALSA v1.0.4 emulation code)
Installed drivers:
Type 10:ALSA emulation

Card config:
No sound cards

Audio Devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG
Same for Synth, Midi, Timers and Mixers

[cintra]

Hei

You would seem to be missing at least an
'alias snd-card 0 snd-atiixp' in /etc/modutils/alsa or wherever (I'm not in Knoppix right now)..

did you do alsaconf?

regards

EDIT: Just came across something that may be relevant..

"There's a small trick with the Slackware install I only figured out with some concerted googling. Hotplug automatically loads both the appropriate sound module (snd-atiixp) and another module (snd-atiixp-modem) that causes a conflict, leading to no sound. So disable the modem one in /etc/hotplug/blacklist"

[mike_the_bike]

No luck, I put snd-atiixp-modem in the blacklist file but no change.

I've also tried the following with no luck.
# /etc/init.d/alsa-autoconfig
Preparing modules for alsa...

I noticed I get this at startup as root (I'm not very observant) !:-

Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No such device)
The sound server will continue, using the null output device.

and if I try to play anything
# play startup.ogg
playing startup.ogg
sox: Can't open output file '/dev/dsp': No such device
Preparing modules for alsa...

Any ideas folks ?

Mike Robinson

[cintra]

What do you get with

# cat /proc/interrupts

mine with a saa7134 TV card and onboard intel8x0 looks like:

CPU0
0: 2218303 XT-PIC timer
1: 6524 XT-PIC i8042
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
3: 2167 XT-PIC Intel 82801DB-ICH4
4: 185348 XT-PIC uhci_hcd, nvidia
5: 205 XT-PIC uhci_hcd
7: 3 XT-PIC parport0
9: 36 XT-PIC acpi, uhci_hcd, saa7134[0]
10: 2503 XT-PIC eth0
11: 3 XT-PIC ehci_hcd
12: 100198 XT-PIC i8042
14: 259949 XT-PIC ide0
15: 24 XT-PIC ide1

mvh

[mike_the_bike]

The sound now works when running the knoppix CD
I need ed the following cheat codes :-

knoppix26 pnpbios=off

I tried the alsa and alsa=intel-8x0 cheats but these seemed to produce less sound entries when running the lsmod command so I left them out.

I now needed to enable the sound on the screen in :-
K menu->control center->sound and ...->sound system

I now needed to raise the volume in the two mixers so as root I ran

aumix
kmix

In the sound system menu you can save the volumes and set it so it uses these volumes on startup. There is also a button there to test the sound but I just ran the following command as root :-

play /usr/share/sounds/startup.ogg

Now I have to work out how to get it working for the hard disk install. It didn't work first time so I'll look at :-

• do I need to be in some audio group ?
  is it starting knoppix with the cheat codes requested (see dmesg)?
  is kmix and aumix enabled on startup with correct volumes ?
  will it play dvd's, CD's, mp3's and the TV with sound ?

All of this does raise a few questions generally on sounds in linux :-

• why is sound disabled by default ?
  why have two mixers and not one ?
  why are volumes set to zero by default ?
  why not allways load the current volumes ?
  why do users have to be part of a group to hear sounds ?

Mike Robinson

[mike_the_bike]

Final solution for getting sound on an Asus Pundit-R

Run knoppix from CD with the following cheat codes :-
knoppix26 pnpbios=off alas=atiixp wheelmouse lang=us

If you want a hard disk install then use knoppix-installer.

Enable sounds via control center.

Run aumix and set volumes etc.

Run kmix and set voulmes etc.

Ensure your user is in the audio group :-
adduser your_id audio

Test sound with :-
play /usr/share/sounds/startup.ogg

Mike Robinson