alsamixer error?

[JockVSJock]

Trying to use alsa for my sound. I am using soundblaster card and a nice set of speakers. I have to turn the volumn all of the way up just to get normal sound, which really sucks.

I've ran the alsa script under /etc/init.d/alsa-autoconfig and it prepares the modules that I need.

When I run alsamixer I get the following error:

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



How do I know that I have all of the right alsa stuff installed, when I apt-get install, I get quite a list of things.

thanks

[Cuddles]

JockVSJock,

From what I know, considering the HELL I went through getting ALSA to work, the "alsamixer" is provided within the "alsa-utils" package. If you can't run the alsamixer, then you don't have alsa running, or not completely, that is.

This is the extent of my knowledge, on the subject, to get ALSA, you need three things:
(1) ALSA drivers for your specific Sound Card
(2) ALSA-Base
(3) ALSA-Utils

You might want to view my two threads, currently running on this forum, "General Questions" -=- Topics: "Sound Editing K3b and cdaudio, sound slowed?" and "Shopping List (Part II)" - the exact topics are not known, but the jest is close. Even though the "K3b" topic is resolved, it got me to install ALSA, which began a new "internal" thread in that topic, and the "Shopping List" topic was started because now that I have ALSA running, I now get static, or noise, introduced into my audio recordings.

I am sure you will also get a response within this topic, but, it can't hurt to see what "you" might be getting yourself into Among the many who helped me, get where I am now, are frequently assisting on these topics, those in particular where: Stephen, Windos_No_Thanks, Fingers99, and Markus -=- as for my issues, if you get ALSA running, and you can record an audio source, and when playing it back, you don't have introduced noise (static), I would be interested in seeing what was done - not to mention, I will be watching this thread/topic, as well, to see the progress

Good Luck, and hope yours doesn't go as bad as mine,
Cuddles

[JockVSJock]

apt-get the following:

1. alsa-modules
2. alsa-base
3. alsa-utils

re-ran the script under /etc/init.d/alsa-autoconfig and then I tried to start ./alsa from that directory, and get this error message:

root@xanadu:/etc/init.d# ./alsa start
Starting ALSA sound driver (version 0.9.2): no sound cards defined.

I run sndconfig, and it finds the card, a SB Live! Emu10000

Then the modules for the card, emu10k1.o is not in my module search path.

BUT, if I do the following:

lsmod | grep emu*
root@xanadu:/etc/init.d# lsmod | grep emu*

emu10k1 61064 1
sound 55244 0 [emu10k1]
ac97_codec 11884 0 [emu10k1]
soundcore 3428 7 [emu10k1 sound]
emu10k1-gp 1224 0 (unused)
gameport 1388 0 [emu10k1-gp]


Very odd, looks like that module is loaded for the kernel, right?

thanks

[Stephen]

apt-get the following:

1. alsa-modules
2. alsa-base
3. alsa-utils

re-ran the script under /etc/init.d/alsa-autoconfig and then I tried to start ./alsa from that directory, and get this error message:

root@xanadu:/etc/init.d# ./alsa start
Starting ALSA sound driver (version 0.9.2): no sound cards defined.

I run sndconfig, and it finds the card, a SB Live! Emu10000

Then the modules for the card, emu10k1.o is not in my module search path.

BUT, if I do the following:

lsmod | grep emu*
root@xanadu:/etc/init.d# lsmod | grep emu*

emu10k1 61064 1
sound 55244 0 [emu10k1]
ac97_codec 11884 0 [emu10k1]
soundcore 3428 7 [emu10k1 sound]
emu10k1-gp 1224 0 (unused)
gameport 1388 0 [emu10k1-gp]


Very odd, looks like that module is loaded for the kernel, right?

thanks

Those are the OSS modules that are loaded you should remove them from /etc/modules. It looks like somehow the configuration file did not get created what version of alsa do you have installed? Here is what my /etc/alsa/modutils/1.0 file looks like.

>$ cat /etc/alsa/modutils/1.0
### DEBCONF MAGIC
# This file was automatically generated by alsa-base's debconf stuff

alias char-major-116 snd
alias char-major-14 soundcore

options snd major=116 cards_limit=4

alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/dsp* snd-pcm-oss

alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1

alias snd-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-slot-0 snd-slot-0

The file /etc/modutils/alsa is a symbolic link to the above file.

>$ ll /etc/modutils/alsa
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     root           22 2004-03-06 23:41 /etc/modutils/alsa -> /etc/alsa/modutils/1.0

What the modules loaded look like.

>$ lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
snd_pcm_oss            48580  0
snd_mixer_oss          15936  2 snd_pcm_oss
nvidia               2070376  12
apm                    15268  2
snd_emu10k1            63172  1
snd_rawmidi            19648  1 snd_emu10k1
snd_pcm                83520  2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_emu10k1
snd_timer              20928  1 snd_pcm
snd_seq_device          6596  2 snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi
snd_ac97_codec         54724  1 snd_emu10k1
snd_page_alloc          9540  2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_util_mem            3456  1 snd_emu10k1
snd_hwdep               7296  1 snd_emu10k1
snd                    46468  10 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_seq_device,snd_ac97_codec,snd_util_mem,snd_hwdep
uhci_hcd               28616  0
ohci_hcd               15936  0
ehci_hcd               21888  0
evdev                   8256  0
via686a                17028  0
i2c_sensor              2496  1 via686a
i2c_isa                 1984  0
i2c_core               18304  3 via686a,i2c_sensor,i2c_isa
nls_iso8859_15          4608  0
sidewinder             10496  0
emu10k1_gp              2496  0
joydev                  9152  0
gameport                3840  2 sidewinder,emu10k1_gp
sound                  75496  0
soundcore               7584  3 snd,sound
parport_pc             25740  1
lp                      8964  0
parport                36864  2 parport_pc,lp
tulip                  38368  0
crc32                   4096  1 tulip

You should check the configuration files to see if they are correct and after making any changes in the files run update-modules for the new information to be entered into the /etc/modules.conf for use on the next boot or loading of the modules.

[JockVSJock]

My /etc/alsa/modutils/

has nothing under it.

This is what is in that directory

root@xanadu:/etc/alsa# ls -a
.  ..  0.9  alsa-base.conf  modutils

Not really sure where to progress from here.

thanks