I have just stuck in alsa here. OSS used work fine on any distro, but now that's no more, and I need alsa as a dependency. The box is LFS-5.0 (and later) with kernel 2.6.12.1, gcc-3.3.1, and alsa-1.0.11 as per the book. I get no files at all in /etc, and no sound. Even pinching a few from a nearby RHEL installation didn't help. I read a bit, did an su - root, and loosened permissions on the devices. No /dev/snd exists, but /dev/dsp, dsp1 and a whole lot of nutty ones do (mixer, mpu401, midi, etc).

[root@genius ~]# alsaconf
which: no dialog in (/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/ssl/bin:/usr/jre1.5.0_01/bin:/opt/bin)
which: no whiptail in (/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/ssl/bin:/usr/jre1.5.0_01/bin:/opt/bin)
Error, dialog or whiptail not found.
[root@genius ~]# alsamixer

alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device
[root@genius ~]# amixer
amixer: Mixer attach default error: No such device
[root@genius ~]# cd /usr/share/sounds/alsa
[root@genius /usr/share/sounds/alsa]# aplay Noise.wav
ALSA lib confmisc.c:670snd_func_card_driver) cannot find card '0'
ALSA lib conf.c:3479_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such device
ALSA lib confmisc.c:391snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:3479_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such device
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1070snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:3479_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such device
ALSA lib conf.c:3947snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such device
ALSA lib pcm.c:2146snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
aplay: main:547: audio open error: No such device

The CMIPCI 8738 shows up on the pci bus,, modules load and tag along nicely. I gather nobody else needs dialog or whiptail. Why am I being asked for them?

[root@genius /usr/share/sounds/alsa]# grep CMI /etc/asound.state
state.CMI8738MC6 {
[root@genius /usr/share/sounds/alsa]# ls /scili/etc/asound.*
/etc/asound.state (Should ther be another?)

Yes, of course it's a mess. What's the way out??

Thanks for any thoughts

what is the soundcard called? seems like the driver needs to be loaded? or is it already loaded in 'lsmod'?

The modules were all loading fine. I no longer have this problem, and you may enjoy a laugh at my expense why.

I downloaded a package in rpm form that I was trying to install. As it was an rpm, and in /usr/src, rpm2targz followed by tar -zxvf gave me /usr/src/usr. So I felt I would delete that, hit rm -rf /usr(!) and only copped on when the disk got busy. I lost about 1.5 gigs from /usr, including the entire bin directory :-/.

This kind of made up my mind for me about updating, and bringing the install into the 21st century. I'm not going to restore from a backup (which I have) but build under what I've got Scientific Linux, which is a RHEL clone.

Hello bizkid,

If you had tried running
snddevices, you would have heard sound.

This is for those who will get into trouble in future
http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=TroubleShooting
Hope, this helps someone




Aniruddha

Hi all.
After a nightmare of reading many many posts I fixed my sound issues by just issuing
sudo chmod -R a+rwX /dev/snd/
and
sudo /etc/init.d/alsa-utils restart
according to the troubleshooting guide at http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php/TroubleShooting

I think there is something fishy in the my feisty setup which do not allow all users to rw these files.

Kindly

//Marcus

On Slackware 2.2.6 I cant compile alsa-utils, and think my alsa-libs 1.0.1 might be faulty. The sound system uses the alsa cs45232.o OK, but after much perseverance I gave up on compiler problems with tstamp after feeding it likely struct defines.
I cant even get alsa-utils ./configure to work - cant find snd-cards in -lasound, or unlinkable libs...not sure.

Read the thread - There's a link to a troubleshooting guide. If the compile of something barfs, google for the _first_ error or paste it in like this

gcc <string of options>
<miles of includes>
<filenames>
Error: <whatever went wrong>

And we'll have a casual guess. or try a slackware forum. The LFS-5.0 installation this was about is dead (As you'll notice!) and gone.