No Sound when Online

**jMon54** · 01-07-2005, 04:45 PM

First off, I know I shouldn't complain about being able to get online using a winmodem. But every time I do so, I lose the ability to play any sounds on my computer. (The soundcard is on the motherboard.) I have turned the volume off under the properties for the modem.

This is a hard drive install of knoppix 3.6.

Any other ideas?

Thanks in advance.

**CrashedAgain** · 01-09-2005, 04:26 AM

Probably the modem is hogging the sound driver. To use sounds from multiple sources you need to use a sound server such as arts. All your normal programs likely feed through arts, but either it or the modem is hogging the sound driver. Try control center-> sounds & set the time for arts to release the sound driver to 1 or 2 seconds.

**Crusader** · 01-16-2005, 10:20 PM

Another thing to consider is booting with the alsa cheatcode (type: alsa) in addition to setting the release time.

Technical-ish and confusing explanation (hopefully even correct):

From what I understand, normally Knoppix uses the OSS sound driver, but it has a problem: if you start up two programs with sound, 1 & 2, only sound program 1 will play sound. If you close program 1, program 2 will have no sound until you close 2 and start it again.
ALSA is better. It doesn't allow 1 & 2 to make sound simultaneously, but will allow program 2 to make noise once program 1 stops saying it's using the sound driver, which means you don't generally need to close either program.

The Arts sound server is used by KDE and KDE applications. It allows anything using arts to play sounds simultaneously (in theory, I've had spotty results) with other arts programs, and acts as a single sound program (like program 1 from the previous example) as far as alsa knows. Setting Arts to free up the sound device after 2 seconds will allow alsa to switch to other sound programs (such as the Mozilla browser, Gaim Instant Messenging program, XMMS, probably the winmodem) and hopefully vice versa, as long as those programs are nice and don't assume they get to hog the sound device.

**jMon54** · 01-17-2005, 02:30 PM

Another thing to consider is booting with the alsa cheatcode (type: alsa) in addition to setting the release time.

Thanks for your information. Just one thing... how do I use cheatcodes? And what is the syntax for the one for alsa? I normally get into Knoppix via the lilo interface (i have a dual boot with windows).

**Crusader** · 01-17-2005, 05:50 PM

I don't know how it works with hd installs. Cheat codes were added when you booted the CD and got to the splash screen...

There may be an option in the Control Center to switch the Sound Device to ALSA.

**CrashedAgain** · 01-18-2005, 04:43 AM

Another possibility (if your problem is sounds from the websites not playing and if you are using konqueror as a browser: Under settings->configure konqueror->plugins-, second tab under 'netscape plugins you may have to enable 'use artsd to pipe sounds' checkbox.

**jMon54** · 01-18-2005, 02:54 PM

Dumb question... is ARTS and ALSA the same thing?

**CrashedAgain** · 01-20-2005, 05:08 AM

Originally Posted by jMon54

Dumb question... is ARTS and ALSA the same thing?

No. ALSA (advanced linux sound architecture) is the linux kernel sound system, replacing the older OSS (open source sound) system. It is the module which actually processes sound signals. It will only process signal from one input at a time thus it is possible for an application to 'hog' the sound system.
Arts is a sound server which takes the signals from several devices & sends them to the sound system so that the system can process sound from more than one source at the same time. arts is used by kde; gnome also has a sound server but I forget what it is called.

**jMon54** · 01-20-2005, 05:44 PM

Arts is a sound server which takes the signals from several devices & sends them to the sound system so that the system can process sound from more than one source at the same time. arts is used by kde;

Based on this information, I think I want to try to get ARTS up & running. So far, it's been a major hassle. I keep getting error boxes like ones telling me files can't be found, etc...

No biggie, it's all fun, for now...

Thanks to all!

**CrashedAgain** · 01-21-2005, 08:41 PM

Originally Posted by jMon54

Arts is a sound server which takes the signals from several devices & sends them to the sound system so that the system can process sound from more than one source at the same time. arts is used by kde;

Based on this information, I think I want to try to get ARTS up & running. So far, it's been a major hassle. I keep getting error boxes like ones telling me files can't be found, etc...

No biggie, it's all fun, for now...

Thanks to all!

You shouldn't have to do anything, KDE auto starts aRts when it needs it. You may have to edit /home/<username>/.kde/share/config/knotifyrc & set all the options to 'true'. It is a hidden file, note the . before the 'kde'.
You can insure the system is using alsa by adding the cheatcode 'alsa' to the 'append=' list in /etc/lilo.conf. You must be root to edit this file. Then run lilo again to implement your changes.