I wan't to use my sound card in debian. I installed debian and remember setting something to do with sound to auto. But can't use audio. Is there anything that I can check or configure to fix this anywhere i'm able to play audio it is greyed out.

You can start by giving us more information

Which soundcard do you have?? Which kernel version are you using? Which Debian version are you using (Woody, Sarge or Sid)??

The sound card is a Realtek AC'97 Audio. Debian version is 3.0 r3. I'm not sure about the kernel if you can direct me on how to find out I would appreciate it. Thank you

Open a shell and type 'uname -a'. The output is some system information. If you can post the output of that command, we can see the kernel version.

Another question: "Have you ever compiled a kernel?" This might be usefull for us to know in order to find a proper solution.

The command returned the following. Linux debian 2.2.20-idepci #1 Sat Apr 20 12:45:19 EST 2002 i686 GNU/Linux. Yes I have compiled a kernel before been a while but could if I have to. I'm also trying to get a ATI TV card working so would like to add support for that if i'm going to compile a new kernel. Thank you.

May I ask why you are using an old (but stable) release like Debian Woody if you want sound and video support? Also, the 2.2 kernel versions are quite old.

My advice is to upgrade to the Sarge (testing) version first. Testing is quite stable (I almost never have problems with it) and the software is much more up-to-date then the software in Woody. Do a search on how to upgrade to Sarge (it's quite easy, just update your '/etc/apt/sources-list' file to point to the Sarge repositories and do a 'apt-get upgrade' followed by a 'apt-get dist-upgrade').

Second, compile a new 2.6 kernel version. It takes quite some time to configure it, but it's worth it. The 2.6 versions have ALSA (sound) modules in the kernel, so this will make it more easy to setup ALSA sound for your soundcard. Try to compile the version "The Debian Way". You can find quite a lot of information (by for example using Google) about compiling kernels in Debian.

Good luck.

I just downloaded this from the net. I have updated a good amount of this box. Here are the lines from my /etc/apt/sources.list. Can you advise me what changes I should make

deb ftp://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US/ testing non-US/main non-US/contrib non-US/non-free
deb ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src ftp://ftp.de.debian.org/debian-non-US/ testing non-US/main non-US/contrib non-US/non-free
deb-src ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free

I have done some looking into updating my kernel will probably do it when I get the time to really get into it this week. But any advice is appreciated.

Thank you,

Your sources-list allready points to the Sarge (testing) repositories, so you're using the Sarge version.

Well, the best advice I can give you is to update the kernel. I've seen a lot of people who are scared to do it, but when you've got some hardware and computer knowledge it's quite easy. And it really pays off, you've got a lot more possibilities when you compile your own kernel.

Another possibility which might get you going is to install a new kernel using 'apt-get'. Debian has some preconfigured/compiled kernels in its repository, so you might want to try to start with those. And do a search on the Internet howto configure ALSA in Debian, which modules you have to load for the AC97 to work, etc. There's a lot of info around, so do some investigation on Google. I'd like to walk you through it, but I still use the 2.4 kernel series on my desktop(because of my stupid Promise RAID controller which doesn't work in 2.6) so I haven't setup ALSA with a 2.6 kernel yet (setting up ALSA in 2.4 is more difficult because the kernel hasn't got ALSA support in it). Also, I don't have an AC97, so I haven't got any experience with that soundcard. So my advice is to Google for information about installing a new kernel and configuring ALSA for your card.

Good luck.

compile your kernel with your sound card support :with :
- ICH for ac97 (deprecated)
- or alsa with OSS emulation

I use the same card with debian testing on a laptop

Debian configuration post-install
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=224547