Manual sound configuration on Debian Sarge

vharishankar · 12-22-2004, 06:07 AM

I have ditched Fedora Core 1 in favour of Debian Sarge just today and I'm totally new to Debian.

There seems to be no way to configure sound manually though. I have tried to find a way but there seems to be no GUI or command line sound configuration tool. Can somebody please help me find a way to detect sound hardware?

Here is my lspci output

Code:

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AGP (different version?) (rev c1)
0000:00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 1 (rev c1)0000:00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 4 (rev c1)0000:00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 3 (rev c1)0000:00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 2 (rev c1)0000:00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 5 (rev c1)0000:00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 ISA Bridge (rev a4)
0000:00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation nForce2 SMBus (MCP) (rev a2)
0000:00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 USB Controller (rev a4)
0000:00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 USB Controller (rev a4)
0000:00:02.2 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 USB Controller (rev a4)
0000:00:04.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Ethernet Controller (rev a1)
0000:00:05.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce MultiMedia audio [Via VT82C686B] (rev a2)
0000:00:06.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AC97 Audio Controler (MCP) (rev a1)
0000:00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 External PCI Bridge (rev a3)0000:00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation nForce2 IDE (rev a2)
0000:00:0d.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): nVidia Corporation nForce2 FireWire (IEEE 1394) Controller (rev a3)
0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AGP (rev c1)
0000:01:04.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Yukon Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Adapter (rev 13)
0000:01:07.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
0000:01:08.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
0000:01:08.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
0000:03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AP [Radeon 9600]
0000:03:00.1 Display controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AP [Radeon 9600] (Secondary)

I have an ASUS A7N8X-E motherboard with on-board nForce sound.

rbochan · 12-22-2004, 01:16 PM

If I remember correctly, you're going to need to make sure you have the proper drivers installed from the nvidia website. Once they're installed, you should be able to use the modconf program to insert them. Also, make sure your users is part of the audio group so you have perms to use the sound card.

m_yates · 12-22-2004, 02:40 PM

I use the nforce2 platform with integrated audio. You don't need to use the nvidia audio driver. You can use i810_audio. Just insert the module:

Code:

modprobe i810_audio

and add "i810_audio" to /etc/modules You should have working sound after that.

If you do decide to use the nvidia drivers, the module name is "nvaudio" I don't see any reason why to use it though. It doesn't work any better or offer other features (that I know of).

vharishankar · 12-22-2004, 08:10 PM

Thanks.

modprobe i810_audio works apparently. It doesn't give any errors. Now how to make sure that the module is auto-loaded on startup?

Also I'm running kernel 2.4.27 and I cannot find the sources for the kernel (to use make menuconfig) in the Synaptic package manager.
How do I install the kernel sources (to configure the kernel)? Thanks.

m_yates · 12-22-2004, 09:34 PM

To make sure the module is loaded at start up, just add its name to /etc/modules. As root:

Code:

nano /etc/modules

Then add "i810_audio" to the list of modules. It will automatically be loaded upon rebooting.

To load kernel sources, do:

Code:

apt-get install kernel-source-2.4.27

It will install the source as a compressed file located in /usr/src. You will have to manually uncompress it and then configure it. I wrote what I did when I upgraded to the 2.6.x kernel here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=206992 It is for a 2.6 kernel, but much of the same stuff applies. There is also great documentation on configuring a kernel the "Debian way" here: http://newbiedoc.sourceforge.net/system/kernel-pkg.html

Good luck!

vharishankar · 12-22-2004, 11:17 PM

Never mind and thanks for all your help!

Sound now works and the i810_audio module loads automatically on startup even without my doing a single thing. I just ran the command

Code:

update_modules

after running the modprobe command and now sound works...

Thanks for all your help.

vharishankar · 12-23-2004, 12:18 AM

I am unable to install kernel sources using apt-get. Can somebody help. I get this error message:

Code:

Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Package kernel-source-2.4.27 is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package kernel-source-2.4.27 has no installation candidate

pevelius · 12-23-2004, 12:35 AM

check that you have the source repository in your /etc/apt/sources.list. here´s my example:

deb-src ftp://ftp.fi.debian.org/debian testing main

here´s the package description:

http://packages.debian.org/testing/d...-source-2.4.27

pevelius · 12-23-2004, 12:36 AM

"deleted my own quote"