need ALSA installation help

**kokoon** · 10-11-2004, 06:21 PM

1. i'm a linux noob (a month or so)
2. i have 3 (three) sb live soundcards, which many other distros (suse, mandrake, yoper) recognise and configure alsa for them properly.
3. knoppix did not, so i decided to install alsa manually.
4. i uninstalled knx-alsa cause it seemed it was choking the synaptic's isntallation (i know, i shouldn't have)
5. now after i installed alsa-base it wouldnt work. after alsaconf it reports
"alsactl: load_state:1134: No soundcards found..."
6. i can't seem to find this knx-alsa anymore.

PLEASE let some linux-sound/alsa guru read this message and help me out, i've been checking out distros for the past 2 months and knoppix looks really the best option, but the sound configuration is sooo messed up (generally in linux)

or if there's a nice linux sound configuration faq or something... ANYTHING...

thanks guys.

edit: i forgot, i've knoppix 3.6, pretty fresh install (a few days)

**eon** · 10-11-2004, 11:43 PM

http://www.debianhelp.org/modules.ph...c=5263&forum=5

This thread, although not specific to your situation, may give you some clues on how to get your sound up again. Depending on how much time you have invested you might just re-install since it was working before. Good luck.

**eon** · 10-11-2004, 11:50 PM

Ahh sorry kokoon I must have been looking at too many sound problem posts today. Your sound didn't work from the begining. But you removed knx-alsa. As the thread link in my 1st post mentions sometimes the mixer levels are muted.
If alsa is now on your system do alsa_init see what happens and post the messages.

**kokoon** · 10-12-2004, 07:41 AM

well the sound did work from the beginning but only as OSS (as far as i understand these things)

i know i need alsa for the low-latency audio which i want for my audio apps, so i searched synaptic for "alsa" and ended up selecting alsa-base, alsa-utils and alsa-modules-2.4.27-1-686.
i dont remember which one went wrong but the error message was something like "you cant do that bacause knx-alsa is using something at the moment" or somehting like that.

so i removed knx-alsa (before that i didnt even know it existed) cause i thought its some kind of stripped down knoppix alsa without full functionality and/or questionable upgradeability and i tried to install normal alsa.

again i selected packages alsa-base, alsa-utils and alsa-modules-2.4.27-1-686
and the alsa-modules failed to install with:

Code:

FATAL: Could not open '/boot/System.map-2.4.27-1-686': No such file or directory

but i guess that means the module is for 2.4 kernel and since im running a 2.6 thats nothing bad.
alsa-base and alsa-modules installed fine.

then i ran alsaconf (is that okay? or should i just reboot the computer without alsa-conf?) and it found my soudcard (prompted me to select) and in the end of alsaconf:

Code:

Running update-modules...
Loading driver...
Starting ALSA.../etc/init.d/alsa: Error: alsactl restore failed with message 'alsactl: load_state:1134: No soundcards found...'.
done.
Setting default volumes...
Saving the mixer setup used for this in /var/lib/alsa/asound.state.
/usr/sbin/alsactl: save_state:1061: No soundcards found...

===============================================================================

 Now ALSA is ready to use.
 For adjustment of volumes, use your favorite mixer.

 Have a lot of fun!

lot of fun my ass!

i tried what you suggested but i dont seem to have an alsa_init executable.

and my problem isnt a "no sound" problem, its a "cant get alsa to run" problem

**eon** · 10-12-2004, 08:23 PM

These problems take some time to work out. Usually they can be resolved. I am not an expert but have had to trouble shoot my own multi-boot system. Since it appears you do not have the knoppix alsa anymore it is a different problem.
Try "lsmod|grep sound" and see if your sound is indeed recognized
(note the vertical line i.e. pipe symbols is produced by typing "shift key plus the \ key).
If it is then try
"/etc/init.d/alsa restart" or /etc/init.d/alsa -autoconfig" If none of that works just copy and paste the error messages to this thread. Good luck.

**kokoon** · 10-12-2004, 09:21 PM

Code:

kokoon@homebox:~$ lsmod|grep sound
sound                  75496  1 emu10k1
soundcore              11232  5 snd,emu10k1,sound

seems its there.

there's no alsa executable on my system.

**eon** · 10-12-2004, 10:47 PM

"there's no alsa executable on my system."

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...506&highlight=

Try the above link. It seems others have done this too. I haven't removed knx-alsa. But from reading the thread in the link it seems you can actually get your knx-alsa back again.
Hope it works-let me know.