Hello,

I've been using RH9 with 2.6.4 kernel and have noticed that there's somethin wrong with my Creative Ensoniq 64 PCI (es1371), esp. when trying to use ALSA system. I should add I'm still a .

Before compiling 2.6.4 kernel I marked the following options reffering to sound devices:


--- Sound Card Support - compiled into Kernel

--- Advanced Linux Sound Architecture - compiled into Kernel
--- PCI Devices
--- Ensoniq Audio PCI 1370 - compiled as a module
--- Ensoniq Audio PCI 1371/1373 - compiled as a module

--- Open Sound System - compiled as a module
--- Ensoniq Audio PCI 1371/1373 - compiled as a module

When the system boots, the ALSA shows its version (1.0.3c) but says it cannot find any soundcard. In my modprobe.conf file there are no alias entries referring to snd-ens1371.ko module - shouldn't they appear after i've succesfuly compiled the 2.6.4 kernel and installed the new modules (including snd-ens1371.ko)? I think they should be in the modprobe.conf or modules.conf- but they aren't.


Another weird thing is just the opposite: in both: 'modprobe.conf' and 'modules.conf' there are aliases to OSS driver for my soundcard:

alias sound-slot-0 es1371

Therefore I expected the es1371.o module to be loaded into kernel at startup. But when, having succesfully logged in as root I give 'lsmod' command I can see neither 'es1371' nor 'ac_97' module displayed in the list.Of course when I manually load these modules into kernel using 'modprobe' they of course appear and work fine. If not manually loaded, these modules will load anyway right after launching XMMS for example.


QUESTIONS:

1. Is this thing with OSS drivers a normal situation - I mean this strange module not-loading at startup.

2. What's going on with the ALSA thing? Should I manually add the following line:


alias snd-card-0 snd-ens1371


to my modprobe.conf to make ALSA detect my soundcard?


Thank You in advance for any reply, friends

you shouldnt compile any conflicting modules into the kernel....

OSS and ALSA are 2 different sound card drivers.
only one of them can be using the sound card at a time,

what i think is happening, is redhat 9 is loading OSS (as this is the only sound it comes with) but failing because ALSA is built into the kenrel.

never ever ever compile anything into the kernel, there is no advantage to having somthing compiled into the kernel, just compile everthing as a module, that way things can be loaded or unloaded as desired.

here is what i would recomend......
re-compile the kernel, but do not compile (into or as module) anything to do with ALSA or OSS.

(Alsa can emulate OSS, so if you intend to use ALSA, you realy shouldnt need OSS)

now, wonder off the ALSA's homepage, (i think its on sourceforge.net) or google for it.
and download the following source code packages....

ALSA-driver
ALSA-utils
ALSA-libs

read the ./configure --help output for each package, make sure you pass yes to OSS emulation and mixers devices.... also, use the --with-cards=(your card) when compiling the driver.

now.... run the snddevices script in the alsa-driver folder.

now run alsaconf to detect and setup the card.

now run "service alsasound start"

now run alsamixer to un mute all he channels (also aumix for the oss channels)

now run `alsactl store` to save the volume.

now run `echo "alsactl restore" >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local`
to load the saved volumes on re-boot.

you may also need to modprobe snd-pcm-oss for oss compatability, (not loaded by default)

anyway, there are tutorials all over the place, its not as hard as it sounds.