My Linux Mandrake 10.1 don't play wav
 

I have a celeron 1 GHz 384 MB 40 GB running both Win XP and Linux Mandrake 10.1.

Every hardware seems to be OK under linux except that when I play .wav the player indicates that it is playing but there is no sound on the speakers.

Everything play ok under Windows.

What can I do to discover why wav doesn't play under linux?

:(

Have you check your mixer settings, I assume you are using kde then you would check kmix. Or maybe alsamixer.
It is probabley turned down or muted, this has happen to me before.

Your're right I'm using KDE. I try every possible combination of options in KMIX and nothing happen.

And about alsamixer? I can't find it. Give me the way?

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alsamixer controls the same things as kmix so if you have it installed it probabley won't help.
What software are you using to play wave files?

Well, as I always try to play wav from conventional CD's I left Mandrake decide. It always decide to use KsCD...

(MP33 plays normally with AmaroK)

Ok I think we are on to something here. The native file type for cds are cda not wave, did you record a data cd with wave files on it or is a normal audio cd?

If it is normal audio cd Linux plays cd via the analog cable for cds. This is not always included on a computer. Are you familiar enough with hardware to identify this cable? It is just a small two prong cable that goes from the back of the cd player to the motherboard. This cable has no effect on your ability to read or write the cd just play an audio cd.

Also just to make sure try to rip a song or two from cd without encoding them to mp3. In other words leave it as a wave file on your hard drive. Then see if you can play this file.

You have to adjust PCM or CD in the mixer. alsamixer is run from the console. You can use konsole, xterm, rxvt, or others to run alsamixer. Usually its in /usr/bin.

Music CD discs are different. You need a cable from your CD-ROM drive connected to the sound card. These days computer manufactures do not attach this cable or do not include it. Enable DAE (digital audio extraction) in programs to read Music CD with the audio cable. Music CD do not use wav files. They are raw audio files.

Good information about the additional cable. I haven't it in my machine.

One more question: Why windows media player, winamp e any other windows player play my Cd's under windows???

I became curious... I put the CD, close the unit and the music begins naturally... Witour any additional cable...

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:(

To be honest I don't know why only that windoz and Linux handle cd differently. I don't know why computer manufactures don't include the cable when I have bought a new cd player to install the cable came with it.

Perhaps Linux developers feel that if you can play cd's while using only a minimum of resources instead of processing digital conversion, that this is a good idea. Just a guess.

I would say do some testing... Can you hear any sounds at all in Linux... if so, then I would rule out the volume issue. Have you tried other .wav files under different applications, Did they come up with the same result. Can you play and here other formats under the same application? If so then It would be a problem with the .wav file or codec problem.

First determine that your sound is working properly then try many diff programs and media formats to determine if it is a hardware or software problem... I would say, however, that if your CD's are playing fine in windows it's not a Hardware issue at all...

KC

In the old days, Windows was just like Linux today. In 1993, computers with a sound card, CD-ROM, a VGA graphics controller, and some decent size memory were called Multimedia Personal Computers or MPC. There were different levels of MPC systems. An MPC-I, is a 80386, 8 MB of RAM, a 2X CD-ROM, VGA graphics controller, a 16-bit sound card. An MPC-II, is an 80486DX2-66, 16 MB of RAM, 4X CD-ROM, a VGA graphics controller, and a 16-bit sound card. These days this acronym is out and people assume computers come with these devices. DAE was not feasible in those days because it takes a consider amount of resources to handle the drive, processing the audio data, playing it throught the sound card. Linux does have DAE just like Windows Media Player has, but it is not enabled by default.

Use xmms instead of kscd because it uses less resources and it does support DAE. To access an audio CD with xmms, just select /mnt/cdrom or whatever the directory for your optical drives as the directory. xmms will just look up the tracks without mounting it.

Linux can not mount audio CD with a certain module that is not included in the kernel. The module is called audiofs but the project has stalled.