Hi, I'm new to Linux, and am having trouble getting my sound card to work. It's a Creative Audigy 2, and when Windows was installed on this box, the sound was fine. Since I wiped that out and installed Linux, I haven't had any luck with it.

I am running Debian Sarge (stable). Kernel 2.6.

When I try to start the sound server, I get this error:
/dev/dsp: No such device

Here is the output of lspci:

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82875P Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
0000:00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82875P Processor to AGP Controller (rev 02)0000:00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI #1 (rev 02)
0000:00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI #2 (rev 02)
0000:00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI #3 (rev 02)
0000:00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI #4 (rev 02)
0000:00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801 PCI Bridge (rev c2)
0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Bridge (rev 02)0000:00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) Ultra ATA 100 Storage Controller (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801EB (ICH5) Serial ATA 150 Storage Controller (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV34GL [Quadro FX 500] (rev a1)
0000:02:00.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy (rev 04)
0000:02:00.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Creative Labs SB Audigy FireWire Port (rev 04)
0000:02:0c.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp. 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 02)

When I try to use GNOME's volume control, I get this message:

Sorry, no mixer elements and/or devices found

Anyone have any ideas? I'll be happy to post any more info anyone needs if they can help.

Did you compile the kernel yourself, or install one of the Debian packages?

Do you have ALSA?

Not having a /dev/dsp indicates to me (stupid me) that if you -do- have ALSA, you don't have the OSS interface to it.

Which sound server are you trying to use? (you mentioned gnome, so I'm guessing ESD?)

How are you trying to start the sound server?

That'll do for now. I'm sure there'll be plenty more questions to ask when you answer those.

Thanks for the response.

The kernel is from the Debian package. I just realized that I was actually booting the 2.4 kernel when I got the esd error I described in my previous post, I switched back to 2.6 and now it just hangs when I enter

$esd

I also tried
$ esd -d /dev/dsp

the only output is "- using device /dev/dsp", and it hangs again.

I have ALSA.
When I try to install OSS, here's what happens:

Checking for any previously installed sound drivers...
*** Sound driver is already running - trying to unload it ***


You appear to have the the kernel level sound driver installed as a loadable
module. Unload it by executing rmmod sound and try installing OSS/Linux again.

If this error repeats again you probably have the sound driver being loaded
automagically by the kerneld daemon. In this case you should log out from the
X Windows session, then press <ctl><alt><F1> and log in on the Linux console
as root and then install OSS again.

Am I allowed to do these changes automatically for you (Y/N) ? Y
Trying to disable the conflicting sound driver
~$

I tried loging into the Linux console as root and installing, but I got the same error message.

I tried
$rmmod sound
output is
ERROR: Module sound does not exist in /proc/modules

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert at this, so don't take my word as gospel, but I'll do my best.

AFAIK, ESD (like a lot of unix programs) doesn't background itself automatically. Running it like this:

Will cause it to appear to hang, in that it won't do anything and the only way you can exit it is by
holding CTRL-C.

If you want to run ESD in the background, you need to follow it with an ampersand:

Now that that's out of the way - if you're using the 2.6 kernel now and ALSA appears to be installed, you don't need to manually start the sound server for sound to work in gnome! Here's what I recommend (it has an unneccessary amount of reboots to be on the safe side)

Make sure you have alsa-utils installed:
Give your computer a fresh boot.
Run alsaconf as root from the console.
Make sure your user is a member of the "audio" group:
If he isn't, add him:
Reboot again.
Start up gnome and log your user in.
Go to the gstreamer preferences panel (I believe it's in... accessories->advanced or something quite similar)
In the audio tab, select ALSA for output.

I'm not looking at an actual debian install right now (I'm at work) so some of the commands might have a slightly tweaky syntax (I hope not!). If any of them don't work the way you expected them to, read the manpages or reply with the problem and I'll try to help out.

Also, it wouldn't hurt to google for the ALSA faq and have a read if you're still having problems (I'm not saying RTFM, it would just be educational for you I think).

Good luck!

The info on running things in the background is good to know.

I already had alsa-utils installed. I ran alsaconf, it detected my card and seemed to go fine. It told me it had set default volumes, and to "have fun". I tried raising the volume on both gnome's volume control and kmix, still no output.
I am in the audio group.
In the GStreamer panel, my only options for output are OSS (the default) and custom. The pipeline for both is osssink. When I test OSS, a dialog comes up that says "testing", and nothing happens.

Great success!

I rebooted AGAIN, and now it works(?!?) Though I'm still not getting any sound through gnome's CD player. I'm sure I'll be able to get it working with a little messing around.

Thanks for your help.

Huzzah! I helped someone.

Glad to hear your sound is working. Good luck with the rest of your Debian adventures.

-Paul