Post-Installation Problems: audio & boot

Kyle Lionheart · 11-02-2006, 11:57 AM

Hi all, I am a real Debian noob and would like some help on a couple of problems that I have. Please feel free to ask for more details if you think I have missed something(and I probably have), and even a redirect to some documentation page is appreciated(i don't mind reading, but some hints on where to begin would be good).
So, let's begin!

I have just installed the current "Stable" version of Debian from the netinstall CD, and it's basically working...but, there are some things that i need help for(in order of importance):

Grub doesn't show windows partitions anymore
Just after first install, grub showed 2 Debian entries and a Windows one. After i made a "apt-get dist-upgrade", apt updated the kernel and after that, Windows is no longer available. How can i restore it?
I need to start the system in command-line, not X
To install nVidia Graphics driver, i need to be out of X, but the system keeps booting to a graphical login...how to get the good old "login:" prompt?
Audio seem to work, but it's not recognised by Teamspeak
Sounds works for XMMS, for example, but it refuses to in Teamspeak client(RC2). Maybe i need to configure something else?

Well, that's it...if someone has suggestions, I'd really appreciate them...expecially for the grub thing

pljvaldez · 11-02-2006, 12:21 PM

1. As root, you can try running the command update-grub which might find your Windows partitions and add them. If that doesn't work, you can manually add the windows entry to your /boot/grub/menu.lst file. The code will look something like this

Code:

title Windows 
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
makeactive

(hd0,0) corresponds to /dev/hda1 (or sda1). Change it to match your windows install partition. You should be able to find it with fdisk -l.

2. init1 should take you to single user mode (root only). If you want, you can set one of your runlevels to be text only (by default debian makes runlevels 2-5 the same). aptitude install sysv-rc-conf and run that program from the command line as root. Use the space bar to deselect gdm, xdm, and/or kdm from whichever runlevel you choose. Then you can just init3 to boot into runlevel 3, which you deselected the graphical manager.

3. Don't know. I don't know what teamspeak is, but if it runs as it's own user instead of as you, you might have to add teamspeak's user to the "audio" group.

farslayer · 11-02-2006, 12:39 PM

2. Couple ways to acomplish this in Debian

ALT+F2 to open a virtual terminal, login, su - to root and issue the command
/etc/init.d/gdm stop
That will shut down X so you can whip through the nvidia driver installation using Debians Module-assistant (that is how you were planning on installing the nVidia drivers right ? )

Debian doesn't use run levels like other distros. Run levels 2-5 are all identical. if you wanted to make your system ALWAYS boot to a command prompt instead of X you simply have to tell the system to not start gdm at boot.
mv /etc/rc2.d/S99gdm /etc/rc2.d/K99gdm or use one of the many config tools to make this change, i.e. sysv-rc-conf for instance..

Kyle Lionheart · 11-02-2006, 02:27 PM

ok, we're making some progress.

thanks to pljvaldez I managed to have Windows again, and "/etc/init.d/gdm stop" works(thanks farslayer) but there are still problems.

The Module assistant (apt-get install module-assistant nvidia-kernel-common) says it cannot find nvidia-kernel-common...and I've also tried the script from nVidia website, but still nothing...

And, still no progress about the Teamspeak thing. It does seem to run under my user, that's obviosly already in "audio" group, but still no audio. One thing...in the config of TS, it seems to expect that audio is on /dev/dsp...I don't know if that helps.
And, by the way, how can i configure the sound card, in case it has something to do with that? sndconfig doesn't work...

pljvaldez · 11-02-2006, 03:15 PM

nvidia-kernel-common lives in the "contrib" repository. So make sure you're /etc/apt/sources.list file has "main contrib non-free" at the end. Then apt-get update and try again.

For the sound, you can try using alsaconf. I haven't used it before (everything's worked on my pretty generic sound cards)...

Kyle Lionheart · 11-02-2006, 05:05 PM

ok, so i managed to find and install the nvidia kernel(thanks pljvaldez, again) but then, after i change the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file(from "nv" to "nvidia") and reboot, X refuses to start and gives error "cannot load module".

Still nothing from TS audio, I'm starting to wonder if this has something to do with codecs...(btw, I'm talking of TeamSpeak client from www.goteamspeak.com/)

pljvaldez · 11-02-2006, 06:30 PM

Look through your xfree86 log file (something like cat /var/log/XFree86.0.log | grep EE) and you might get more information about why it failed to load.

EDIT: Oh, and you don't have to reboot. You can just restart the X server. Hit CTRL+ALT+Backspace or as root do /etc/init.d/gdm restart (replace gdm with kdm or xdm as needed).

Kyle Lionheart · 11-03-2006, 03:00 AM

well, well, nvidia problem is gone. Seems I did miss a passage during the installation of the drivers, but now it's all right.

The only problem that remains is the damn audio. I tried to run alsaconf but that made the situation worse: when it runs it can't find any sound card...and now audio is not working at all(every system restart a dialog appears and say that /dev/dsp not exist)

I have a nForce 2 integrated soundcard, if that can help.

EDIT: the starting error, in detail (from aRts):

Quote:

Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No such device)
The sound server will continue, using the null output device.

EDIT2: that's the result from lspci |grep audio:

Quote:

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 AudioControler (MCP) (rev a1)

pljvaldez · 11-03-2006, 11:10 AM

I'm not sure, but are there 3rd party drivers for the nVidia audio?

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_nforce_1.11.html

Hmmm. Looks like they should be supported. What is the output of lsmod | grep -i snd?

Kyle Lionheart · 11-03-2006, 12:10 PM

mmm...I'll try that as soon as I return home. i'll keep you informed (and thanks again)

Kyle Lionheart · 11-06-2006, 05:44 AM

here i am...

I just tried lsmod | grep -i snd and it returns...nothing. What does this mean?

This is the full report of lsmod, if that can help...

Code:

Module                  Size  Used by    Tainted: P
soundcore               3268   0  (autoclean)
apm                     8428   1  (autoclean)
parport_pc             19432   1  (autoclean)
appletalk              17828   0  (autoclean)
lp                      5540   0
parport                21608   1  [parport_pc lp]
ppp_async               5984   0  (autoclean)
ppp_generic            18020   0  (autoclean) [ppp_async]
slhc                    4144   0  (autoclean) [ppp_generic]
af_packet              11080   1  (autoclean)
ipt_state                504  29  (autoclean)
ipt_REJECT              3160   4  (autoclean)
ipt_limit                824   6  (autoclean)
ipt_LOG                 3032   6  (autoclean)
ip_conntrack_irc        2640   0  (unused)
ip_conntrack_ftp        3440   0  (unused)
ip_conntrack           16932   2  [ipt_state ip_conntrack_irc ip_conntrack_ftp]
iptable_filter          1644   1  (autoclean)
ip_tables              10432   5  [ipt_state ipt_REJECT ipt_limit ipt_LOG iptable_filter]
mousedev                3604   1
hid                    19076   0  (unused)
input                   3040   0  [mousedev hid]
usb-storage            54496   0  (unused)
nvidia               3645692   6
ehci-hcd               14764   0  (unused)
usb-ohci               16488   0  (unused)
usbcore                52268   1  [hid usb-storage ehci-hcd usb-ohci]
ide-scsi                8272   0
forcedeth               7948   1
agpgart                39108   3
nls_cp437               4284   2  (autoclean)
vfat                    8748   0  (autoclean)
fat                    27576   0  (autoclean) [vfat]
sd_mod                 10764   0  (autoclean) (unused)
scsi_mod               86020   3  (autoclean) [usb-storage ide-scsi sd_mod]
ntfs                   45088   2  (autoclean)
ide-cd                 27040   0
cdrom                  26212   0  [ide-cd]
rtc                     5768   0  (autoclean)
ext3                   65388   1  (autoclean)
jbd                    34628   1  (autoclean) [ext3]
ide-detect               288   0  (autoclean) (unused)
ide-disk               12416   4  (autoclean)
amd74xx                 9636   1  (autoclean)
ide-core               91800   4  (autoclean) [usb-storage ide-scsi ide-cd ide-detect ide-disk amd74xx]
unix                   12816 113  (autoclean)

pljvaldez · 11-06-2006, 11:41 AM

From google, it looks like you need to use the snd-intel8x0 driver for your soundcard. Try modprobe snd-intel8x0 or maybe snd-intel8x0.o to load the module.

Kyle Lionheart · 11-07-2006, 06:23 AM

modprobe cannot locate the module

pljvaldez · 11-07-2006, 05:02 PM

Well, I would go searching through your modules directories and see if you can find the right one. Mine is in /lib/modules/2.6.8-3-686/kernel/sound/oss. Yours may have a different kernel version. Then when you find one that looks like i810_audio or intel8x0 or something like that, try modprobing that one.

Kyle Lionheart · 11-09-2006, 08:46 AM

And this, too, is done...modprobing worked at last.

Thanks for your patience, again.
From here, I think I can handle things myself