Soundcard Detection/Test on Fedora 9

andymck · 08-03-2008, 12:48 PM

I've done a quick search on the Fedora forum and can't find any threads that address my problem; if anyone can either fix my problem or direct me to an appropriate thread, I'd be grateful.

Under Fedora 8, my SoundBlaster worked pretty much as it should; there were a few applications that didn't recognize it (mostly Windows programs running under Wine), but for the most part it was OK. Since I've installed Fedora 9, however, I have NO sound -- games, Firefox, movie viewers, ... anything. Not only that, but the Administration menu no longer includes the "Soundcard Detection" tool, so I don't have any easy way to find out what the OS thinks I have. Is there some flag that got reset (or deleted) improperly, or do I need to install something by hand, or what? It's possible that I have some hardware issues to resolve, but, if so, (1) they emerged during the upgrade, and (2) I would have expected diagnostic tools to be better, not worse, now -- i.e., both just as useful and just as easy to find.

Any Suggestions?

decrepit · 08-04-2008, 05:51 AM

Not sure if this will help, but in my core8 installation right clicking on the speaker icon, (top right corner of desktop) opens the audio control. clicking on file enables you to change mixers. Maybe trying a few things there could help.

andymck · 08-06-2008, 08:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by decrepit

Not sure if this will help, but in my core8 installation right clicking on the speaker icon, (top right corner of desktop) opens the audio control. clicking on file enables you to change mixers. Maybe trying a few things there could help.

Tried that, no luck; thanks anyway. FWIW, it worked (mostly) OK for me as well in FC8. My first question, of course, is "How do I fix it?" The second is not "Why is it broken?" but rather "Why did the upgrade to FC9 break it?"

Bluestreak · 08-23-2008, 09:54 AM

I don't have sound either on my installation. I just installed Fedora 9 yesterday, and notice that the sound is not working. After installing the flash plugin (which was unusually difficult) I realized that the sound is not working. Unbelievable....

My videocard is selected properly. The volume controls are all halfway up, but still nothing. Somebody help!

I have SoundBlaster Live! Value

nbcohen · 09-02-2008, 01:33 PM

My problem is similar, but not quite the same. I installed Fedora 9, did a yum update, and later installed 'Xine'. When I open a movie file (mpg, wmv, whatever) the sound works fine. At least some games (Maelstrom for example) runs fine. However, if I play any video clip in either Firefox or Konqueror, there is no sound. No indication of a problem - just no sound. I have the latest Adobe flash player installed.

Any explanations or suggestions would be appreciated...

nbc

Bob Keller · 09-02-2008, 02:37 PM

Andy wrote:
<< Not only that, but the Administration menu no longer includes the "Soundcard Detection" tool, so I don't have any easy way to find out what the OS thinks I have. >>

Having the same issue with an install of Fedora 9/Gnome that's lacking sound - no sound card detection tool under the admin menu... I thought the detect widget might be available only as root user, but changing to the root user doesn't enable that function under Admin, and I haven't found a detection type tool elsewhere.

Sound works fine under Windows XP on my box, but I'm total noob to Linux, so figure I must simply be overlooking something obvious elsewhere in the GUI menus???

Frustrating heh...

andymck · 09-03-2008, 05:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Keller

Andy wrote:
<< Not only that, but the Administration menu no longer includes the "Soundcard Detection" tool, so I don't have any easy way to find out what the OS thinks I have. >>

Having the same issue with an install of Fedora 9/Gnome that's lacking sound - no sound card detection tool under the admin menu... I thought the detect widget might be available only as root user, but changing to the root user doesn't enable that function under Admin, and I haven't found a detection type tool elsewhere.

Sound works fine under Windows XP on my box, but I'm total noob to Linux, so figure I must simply be overlooking something obvious elsewhere in the GUI menus???

Frustrating heh...

Yeah, that's what's really frustrating to me; it works in Windows and in Fedora 8, but not Fedora 9 -- and in 9, they've also taken out the one tool that might have told me something useful! Even now after installing 9, I can reboot under WinXp and it works, so I know it's not the hardware, just something about how the software options are configured.

FWIW, a couple of days ago I did manage to get a LITTLE response. After playing around with the various sound tools (device selection, PulseAudio, volume control, ...) I was able to hear the various event sounds, both in test and for real. But I couldn't get anything out of any applications (MPlayer, Firefox, etc.) and I couldn't get it to survive logging out and back in.

One final thought. Fedora 9 is the first release that uses PulseAudio by default, and ALSA has always worked (mostly) OK for me, so this is the first time I've used PulseAudio. Is there some magic PulseAudio configurator that I need to run? I've tried to RTFM, but so far I haven't succeeded in finding the right FM to R; everything I've found so far says that it's supposed to "just work," with the various drivers doing the detection and configuration automagically, but it sure as heck isn't working for me.