So I did some searching and I have come up empty-handed in my search for any clue to the existence of some form of a driver for this AC97 codec. I'm seeing quite a few mobos released with this codec (most newer boards). I'm running RH9 and would like to have sound support so I can dabble into gaming and play with XMMS. Any info on a homebrew or hacked driver would be excellent. Thanks everyone.

-Dan

Have you tried the i810 driver. Redhat says it might work on any ac97 compliant sound system.

Sorry, no dice. Linux absolutely crapped on that driver. Looks like tough luck for ALC655 users. Thanks for your help!

-Dan DeRemer

I was using a Gigabyte GA-8KNXP with the ALC655 codec and the sound worked with Fedora Core 1 and Knoppix as of about v3.2 or 3.3. It also seems that the Severn release worked but RH9 and RH8 didn't. It was using the i810 driver, are there possibly different versions of the same driver?

I also have Gigabyte Pro2 Rev 2 with ALC655 onboard. There was no sound with my RH 8.0 but after upgraded with Fedorca Core 1 (based on 2.4.22.14), it now works but only in 2 channels, no SPDIF. The weird thing is Hardware browser shows the Sound device as Nforce Audio, claimed by driver module i810_audio.o

I tried ALSASOUND 1.05a (latest release I think) which supports snd-intel8x0 sound device but failed at the last step 'modprobe snd-intel8x0'.

So now I ended up with 2 channel sound only. Pls Let me know if do things differently and have 5.1 and SPDIF working.

Thanks.

I sorted out after reading more threads. With FC1 snd-intel8x0 does not exist, only i810_audio (but it works though), so installing ALSA seems a waste of time. I upgraded to FC2 and snd-intel8x0 is there.

Got it fixed. FC1 does not have snd-intel8x0, only i810_audio so I had to upgrade to FC2.