no sound in GNOME(/dev/dsp error)

kushalkoolwal · 03-04-2006, 04:07 PM

hi,

I am debian sarge(Xorg from backports) with GNOME installed. Whenever I tried to play any audio file, I get the following warning from xmms player.

Code:

** WARNING **: oss_open(): Failed to open audio device (/dev/dsp): No such file or directory

I am not able to listen to any audio sounds?

What could be the problem?
EDITED:Some more info added:
Hi,

I am using etch(kernel 2.6.13) with Xorg and GNOME. Recently I installed some package, which required 'udev' as one of the dependencies. Now after installing udev and the other packages.

Now after installing udev, I find that there is no /dev/dsp file and I can no longer play my audio files through xmms. Before installing udev I was able to play and the device file /dev/dsp file had existed.

Now why does this happen? I have heard lots of about udev and problems related with it. What are some steps which are specific to debian after installing udev?

Are there any other things which I need to take care? Also to get my sound back, do I have to create the device file /dev/dsp (by mknod)? From what I have read about 'udev' which is:

Code:

udev is a daemon which dynamically creates and removes device nodes from /dev/, handles hotplug events and loads drivers at boot time. It replaces the hotplug package and requires a kernel not older than 2.6.12.

Then why doesn't it creates the /dev/dsp device in my case??

Thank you in advacne.

Thanks

m2acis · 03-05-2006, 10:38 AM

You can't play sound only in Gnome or in system at all? If in system at all then shure that you have lodaded (or compiled in kernel) your soundcard module.

rickh · 03-05-2006, 10:39 AM

That is way to broad a question with very little information to go on, but a wild guess ... Have you run alsaconf?

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lestoil · 03-05-2006, 10:54 AM

If you have alsa programs(alsa alsa-base alsa-utils alsa-oss alsaplayer) installed, try alsaconf command (as root from terminal) to see if sound card can be installed. Then with alsamixer, aumix, or gnome vol control set level.
lspci | grep audio wiil list sound card found. lsmod | grep snd will list snd modules. This info can help determine what module to load if it wasn't loaded already. Good luck.

kushalkoolwal · 03-05-2006, 01:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lestoil

If you have alsa programs(alsa alsa-base alsa-utils alsa-oss alsaplayer) installed, try alsaconf command (as root from terminal) to see if sound card can be installed. Then with alsamixer, aumix, or gnome vol control set level.
lspci | grep audio wiil list sound card found. lsmod | grep snd will list snd modules. This info can help determine what module to load if it wasn't loaded already. Good luck.

Thanks lestoil. I installed the alsa package and ran alsaconf. I t detected my sound card and configured it properly. When then when I tried to play any sound wile in xmms, it still gives me the following error.

Code:

debian:~# xmms

Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library
libmikmod.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
libvorbisfile.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Message: device: default
The font "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-10-*" does not support all the required character sets for the current locale "C"
  (Missing character set "ISO8859-1")

** WARNING **: Failed to open font: "-adobe-helvetica-bold-r-*-*-10-*".

** WARNING **: oss_open(): Failed to open audio device (/dev/dsp): No such file or directory

** WARNING **: oss_set_volume(): Failed to open mixer device (/dev/mixer): No such file or directory

Also, on giving lsmod | grep snd, I get the following modules installed. Now which ones of these should I 'rmmod' and 'modprobe' in?

Code:

debian:~# lsmod | grep snd
snd_intel8x0           30912  1
snd_ac97_codec         73468  1 snd_intel8x0
snd_pcm                82696  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer              23812  1 snd_pcm
snd                    52484  6 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore               9824  1 snd
snd_page_alloc         10248  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
debian:~#

Thnaks for your help. Yes I can;t play in any of the GNOME based applications.

rickh · 03-05-2006, 03:07 PM

Check xmms Preferences, and make sure it's using the ALSA drivers

johnMG · 03-05-2006, 03:40 PM

Judging from your error message, check that you've got locales installed:

apt-get install locales

You may also have to run 'dpkg-reconfigure locales'.

lestoil · 03-05-2006, 04:09 PM

The right sound modules are loaded(i810 ones). Sometimes you may notice that you play a cd which plays fine then try xmms and get no sound eventhough alsa is loaded and works. Problem is that alsa may have trouble unloading after 1st use(for cd above). So you can chose esound(enlightement sound server)plugin for xmms. Esound doesn't have that problem.
Locales problem is separate issue. follow tips already given. Good luck with upgrade.

kushalkoolwal · 03-05-2006, 04:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lestoil

The right sound modules are loaded(i810 ones). Sometimes you may notice that you play a cd which plays fine then try xmms and get no sound eventhough alsa is loaded and works. Problem is that alsa may have trouble unloading after 1st use(for cd above). So you can chose esound(enlightement sound server)plugin for xmms. Esound doesn't have that problem.
Locales problem is separate issue. follow tips already given. Good luck with upgrade.

Ok here is what I did:

After doing some googling, I found out that, I have to give the comamnd:

Code:

modprobe snd_pcm_oss

After that, I got my /dev/dsp and /dev/mixer devices and I was able to play the sound through xmms.

After rebooting my system I observed that I had to again give the command modprobe snd_pcm_oss so I added these line to my /etc/moduels

Code:

modprobe snd_pcm_oss

This basically, solved my problem of modprobing the snd_pcm_oss after every reboot.

Next I observed that, there are no sound for the GNOME applications. Like the sound when the GNOME loads and everything. I again did some googling and I found out that I need to do the following:

Code:

apt-get install gnome-media gnome-audio esound

After this I rebooted my computer and now I had the GNOME sound working fine, but when I tried playing sound from xmms it said that

Code:

** WARNING **: oss_open(): Failed to open audio device (/dev/dsp): Device or Resource Busy

So I guessed that probably when I clicked on "Enable sounds for server" under Preference->Sound->Sound preferences tab under GNOME panel, the /dev/dsp must have got used my GNOME, and that;s why xmms is not working.

So under xmmms->Preferences I changed the outplug plugin to ALSA Driver and now I got the sound back.

Now I have both GNOME sound and the xmms sound.

Is this a correct setup that I have did? Or this is just a quick and dirty work around. Please help me, I am really confused with this alsa stuff.

Also, I read that some people gave up using snd_pcm_oss and installed:

Code:

apt-get install alsa-oss

DO I need to do that? Or my current setup is fine?

Any help will be really appreciated.

Thanks lestoil and JohnMG for all your help till now.

EDITED:Also I just found out that pcm_snd_oss is one of the three modules by alsa itself, the other being are snd-seq-oss and snd-mixer-oss.

rickh · 03-05-2006, 05:17 PM

rickh:

Quote:

a wild guess ... Have you run alsaconf?

kushalkoolwal:

Quote:

I installed the alsa package and ran alsaconf....(but)

rickh:

Quote:

Check xmms Preferences, and make sure it's using the ALSA drivers

kushalkoolwal:

Quote:

So under xmmms->Preferences I changed the outplug plugin to ALSA Driver

That's all you had to do, and the fix is probably permanent.

johnMG · 03-05-2006, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Also, I read that some people gave up using snd_pcm_oss and installed:
Code:

apt-get install alsa-oss

DO I need to do that? Or my current setup is fine?

I think you only need alsa-oss if you want to use old oss-only programs on your system. Read "apt-cache show alsa-oss".

> Please help me, I am really confused with this alsa stuff.

Yeah, it seems a little complicated to me too. Just goes to show, writing good docs is hard.

kushalkoolwal · 03-05-2006, 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnMG

I think you only need alsa-oss if you want to use old oss-only programs on your system. Read "apt-cache show alsa-oss".

> Please help me, I am really confused with this alsa stuff.

Yeah, it seems a little complicated to me too. Just goes to show, writing good docs is hard.

Thanks rickh and JohnMG.

So, JohnMG, what should I do to use onyl alsa-oss? Is snd_pcm_oss what I need to use(I am already using that)? Also what modules do I require to get the microphone also working?

Also I had one more question, if the sound modules like snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec for my audio hardware were already installed, why does one require to install ALSA modules? Are those some kind of supplemental modules which one requires to get their hardware working? Like in windows we just have to install the manufacturer's audio drives and that does the job. So in Linux, why do we require this whole ALSA stuff which creates so much of confusion?

johnMG · 03-05-2006, 10:57 PM

> So, JohnMG, what should I do to use onyl alsa-oss? [snip]

Dunno. It might help to read these though:
http://wiki.debian.org/?ALSA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALSA_(Linux)
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Alsa-sound.html (last updated Nov. 1999)
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/index.html (last updated July 2001)