SB Live detected but not used, and no "PnP" in Del

Hello,

on my quest for a Linux to play around with, I luckily came across Knoppix -- what a beauty! One of the most amazing pieces of software I have seen in a long life with computers...

And it worked for me straight out of the box, ADSL connection and all. Download, burn, boot, ready. Amazing!
Thanks to the creator(s)!

Only one snag: On my Dell Dimension 8250, the sound card (SB Live) is correctly recognized, but it's not taken into use. I read somewhere here that the BIOS setting "PnP O/S" has to be set to "no" -- but unfortunately, the very minimalistic Dell BIOS (v. A01) menu does not offer this (or any other PnP related) setting. (They seem to have great faith in PnP...)
I also tried "knoppix alsa", but to no avail.

Now what? Is there a work-around?

And where would I look (in Knoppix logfiles, etc.) for a more detailed diagnosis of what the actual problem is?
Need I run sndconfig? (If so , where to find instructions?)

Thanks in advance for any pointers.

Cheers,
Martin

To run sndconfig just enter it into a terminal. If that doesn't get you fixed do lsmod and post the output here.

Thanks for the reply!

1. I ran sndconfig which told me

Code:

A PCI sound card was found in your system. The details are: Model: Creative Labs | [SB Live! Value] ENU10k1X

...and after the next OK button proceeded to say

Code:

The Creative Labs | [SB Live! Value] ENU10k1X is not supported.

This was sndconfig v. 0.57 (from KNOPPIX_V3.2-2003-07-26-EN, which incidentally boasts "... added another audigy PCI ID -> emu10k1 driver
").

I got a newer version (sndconfig_0.67-3_i386.deb) from debian.org, but couldn't install it (with dpkg) as of course everything is read-only.

(BTW: Would it help to just have Knoppix on a CD-RW to make such changes possible? Or is this not enough, and I would still have to go through all those re-mastering calisthenics?)

2. lspci said this:

Code:

. . . snip . . . 02:07.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs [SB Live! Value] EMU10k1X Subsystem: Creative Labs: Unknown device 1003 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 16 I/O ports at dc60 [size=32] Capabilities: <available only to root> 02:07.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs [SB Live! Value] Input device controller Subsystem: Creative Labs: Unknown device 1003 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64 I/O ports at dc58 [size=8] Capabilities: <available only to root> . . . snip . . .

3. ...and lsmod had this to say:

Code:

Module Size Used by Not tainted . . . snd-pcm-oss 35588 0 (autoclean) snd-mixer-oss 11160 0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm-oss] snd-emu10k1 58036 0 (autoclean) snd-pcm 53888 0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm-oss snd-emu10k1] snd-timer 13352 0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm] snd-hwdep 4544 0 (autoclean) [snd-emu10k1] snd-util-mem 1072 0 (autoclean) [snd-emu10k1] snd-page-alloc 4320 0 (autoclean) [snd-emu10k1 snd-pcm] snd-rawmidi 12256 0 (autoclean) [snd-emu10k1] snd-seq-device 3748 0 (autoclean) [snd-emu10k1 snd-rawmidi] snd-ac97-codec 31776 0 (autoclean) [snd-emu10k1] snd 25828 0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-emu10k1 snd-pcm snd-timer snd-hwdep snd-util-mem snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device snd-ac97-codec] radeon 108164 0 (unused) . . . soundcore 3364 6 (autoclean) [snd] . . .

Any further hints? Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Martin

In additon to your SB live does your Dell happen to have on board sound? If so, disable it in your bios. Apart from that you could also try using the alsa cheat code when you boot.

Moi!

Quote:

Originally Posted by aay

In additon to your SB live does your Dell happen to have on board sound?

No, I don't think so (Dell Dimension 8250 in original configuration.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by aay

If so, disable it in your bios.

No setting for this available. I also read elsewhere that one should set "PnP O/S" to "no" in the BIOS. The problem is, however, that the Dell BIOS (A01) settings menu is very minimalistic and does not offer any PnP related settings at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aay

Apart from that you could also try using the alsa cheat code when you boot.

I tried that also, and to me, it looks like everything goes just fine:
From the startup messages:

Code:

. . . Soundcard: driver=ALSA(autodetect) . . Preparing modules for alsa... Building card database.. Configuring emu10k1... Running update-modules... Creating snddevices... Setting default volumes... . . . insmod: Note: /etc/modules.conf is more recent than /lib/modules/extra/modules.dep

(Don't know if that insmod Note is relevant; it comes up during startup and after shutdown.)

So it seems the sound card is set up as emu10k1 (as it should, I think?), but still keeps quiet.
E.g. nothing from XMMS: song title (just the demo piece) is displayed, but no sound. Strangely, the time count does not proceed either, so I am not quite sure if XMMS is or is not at least "thinking" it's playing.

What next???

Thanks for the help so far,
greetings,
Martin

I have purchased a Dell with this sound card and it is not a standard SB live card. It is not (yet) supported by any of the open source drivers. The only support I could find is from http://www.opensound.com/ and is not free.

dash.

Quote:

Originally Posted by dash

I have purchased a Dell with this sound card and it is not a standard SB live card. It is not (yet) supported by any of the open source drivers. ...

hmm, that's not good news -- but at least it is a definite answer to my problem. Thanks!

What is the correct etiquette to put this driver on the Knoppix wishlist?

cheers,
Martin

sounds like it probably isn't what's happening in your case but, at any rate, my sblive would be detected, but then wouldn't work...

it turned out that for some reason knoppix was deciding that my logitech usb webcam was a soundcard and using it instead... i unplugged the webcam, rebooted and the sblive worked...

Quote:

Originally Posted by dash

I have purchased a Dell with this sound card and it is not a standard SB live card. It is not (yet) supported by any of the open source drivers. The only support I could find is from http://www.opensound.com/ and is not free.

dash.

Now why doesn't that suprise me? :) There is always the ALSA-project. They give good instructions on how to make a given card work. Of course- if you have an el-cheapo card that is simply "SB compatible" (whatever that really means) then maybe it's a waste of your time.