Hello,

Perhaps some kind person could help me?

I'm running SUSE 10.0 with KDE on a new Sony Vaio FE11S laptop and cannot get the sound system to work no matter what I do. I've tried installing the latest OpenSound system, then uninstalling it, then Googling, and can't find anything. I accept it's a new laptop, so might not be supported yet, but it's very irritating.

According to Windows, I have a SigmaTel High Definition Audio Device.

According to lspci, it's an "Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 2)".

SUSE's YaST config module has detected the card as an "82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller".

When I go into the YaST Sound window, the Audio Device is set to "autodetect", but when I select any of the options and hit "Apply", I get a small window with a status bar saying "Restarting Sound System". It takes about 20secs to reach 100% then starts back at 0% and keeps repeating indefinately. For any of the sound systems (ALSA, Jack, OSS).

Some sites/groups suggest disabling the External Amplifier using the "Switches" tab on KMix (this group wont let me post the URL), but my KMix doesn't have a "Switches" tab - there's just one tab called "Output" with one slider marked "PCM".

Please help - this is (silently) driving me mad.

Cheers!

Have you added your user to the audio group? Check in KUser. I'm not sure what else it could be.


Have you tried using alsaconf and alsamixer?
Either way please try alsamixer and, should it give you an error, post that for me.

Hopefully, we can get you up and running quickly.

Hi, and thanks for your help.

You were right about the user accounts, my user was not added to the "Audio" group.

For future users, when trying to add the user to the Audio group, I got an error stating that KUser could not find the file "/etc/gshadow" and could not make a backup of it. A little Googling uncovered that this could be fixed with the command "touch /etc/gshadow/". Eventually, after doing this and running as root, my user was added to the Audio group.

But...

The sound still doesn't work. Slight change to the problem now, though.

Before, when selecting a sound system in YaST, the status bar would run 0% to 100% and infinately loop. Now it finishes and goes away, stating that the sound system has been started. Yet when I go to "Test Sound", it crashes (ie, triggers the KDE Crash Handler), and doesn't play anything.

If it helps, the crash backtrace reads:

(no debugging symbols found)
Using host libthread_db library "/lib/tls/libthread_db.so.1".
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
[New Thread 1082323040 (LWP 16175)]
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
(no debugging symbols found)
[KCrash handler]
#15 0x400a3ae6 in Arts::PlayObject_base::_create ()
from /opt/kde3/lib/libkmedia2_idl.so.1
#16 0x08057776 in ?? ()
#17 0xbfd6a18c in ?? ()
#18 0xbfd6a178 in ?? ()
#19 0x080b66fc in ?? ()
#20 0x00000001 in ?? ()
#21 0x0000006f in ?? ()
#22 0x00000000 in ?? ()
#23 0x01d6a17b in ?? ()
#24 0x00000000 in ?? ()
#25 0xbfd6a17b in ?? ()
#26 0x00000028 in ?? ()
#27 0x080b66f0 in ?? ()
#28 0x080bc3e0 in ?? ()
#29 0x080b7610 in ?? ()
#30 0x080b771c in ?? ()
#31 0x080ae144 in ?? ()
#32 0x080ba4a4 in ?? ()
#33 0x080b774c in ?? ()
#34 0x080bb4a4 in ?? ()
#35 0x080ae144 in ?? ()
#36 0x080ae144 in ?? ()
#37 0x080b66fc in ?? ()
#38 0x080b6c74 in ?? ()
#39 0x00000028 in ?? ()
#40 0x00000028 in ?? ()
#41 0x4082a8a0 in mp_ () from /lib/tls/libc.so.6
#42 0x080b75e0 in ?? ()
#43 0xbfd6a1c8 in ?? ()
#44 0x406d3cd0 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6
#45 0xbfd6a224 in ?? ()
#46 0x00000028 in ?? ()
#47 0xbfd6a1e8 in ?? ()
#48 0x4068ce77 in std::string::assign () from /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6
#49 0x08053772 in ?? ()
#50 0xbfd6a1ec in ?? ()
#51 0x08085bf0 in ?? ()
#52 0xbfd6a224 in ?? ()
#53 0x403b48a9 in Arts::Buffer::readString () from /opt/kde3/lib/libmcop.so.1
#54 0x40059681 in Arts::ByteSoundReceiver::_Creator ()
from /opt/kde3/lib/libsoundserver_idl.so.1
#55 0x403cf876 in Arts::Object_skel::_dispatch ()
from /opt/kde3/lib/libmcop.so.1
#56 0x403cff0e in Arts:ispatcher::handle () from /opt/kde3/lib/libmcop.so.1
#57 0x403d0cf9 in Arts::Connection::receive () from /opt/kde3/lib/libmcop.so.1
#58 0x403d0ecb in Arts::Connection::receive () from /opt/kde3/lib/libmcop.so.1
#59 0x403b642b in Arts::StdIOManager:rocessOneEvent ()
from /opt/kde3/lib/libmcop.so.1
#60 0x403aeab1 in Arts::StdIOManager::run () from /opt/kde3/lib/libmcop.so.1
#61 0x403ae937 in Arts:ispatcher::run () from /opt/kde3/lib/libmcop.so.1
#62 0x08059c94 in ?? ()
#63 0xbfd6c6c8 in ?? ()
#64 0x0000003b in ?? ()
#65 0xbfd6c7de in ?? ()
#66 0x00000000 in ?? ()
#67 0xbfd6c74c in ?? ()
#68 0x40007fd7 in _dl_lookup_symbol_x () from /lib/ld-linux.so.2
#69 0x40722ea0 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/tls/libc.so.6
#70 0x080520d1 in ?? ()


I then ran alsaconf as per your suggestion. It seemed to work perfectly, but played nothing. After running it, it said:

Following card(s) are found on your system.
Choose a soundcard to configure:

hda-intel 00:1b.0 Class 0403: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family)
legacy Probe legacy ISA (non-PnP) chips

Clicking OK returns:

Configuring snd-hda-intel
Do you want to modify /etc/modprobe.d/sound (and /etc/modprobe.conf if present)?

It then says "Soundcard is configured", I click OK and it runs a bash script which states "Starting sound driver ... done." It then offers to play a sample file, which doesn't return any errors, but don't actually play any sound either. I've tried the legacy probe without success.

Alsamixer loads fine but only give me a volume control. Still nothing cometh from my silent speakers..

Any ideas?

alsamixer should only give you a volume control. Try setting the Master and the PCM volumes to about 60 and opening Juk or something to play back. I get a dead sound system as well for KDE, but my guess is because I choose to circumvent aRts altogether. Remember, in alsamixer to unmute the mixer channels with M before exiting.

Hi,

I've tried playing around with alsamixer, muting and unmuting and setting all sorts of volumes, but to no avail.

I think it might be something to do with the sound system failing. There's a red cross over the volume control in my system tray, and KMixer has nothing listed in the box marked "Current Mixer"...

Try muting the "external Amplifier" part of the mixer as root and then try running alsamixer as your normal user (setting Master, and PCM to about 60 and muting the external amp) to see if that helps.


Then I would try uninstalling and reinstalling aRts and artsc-config.

Seems that aRts is failing (like you speculated), but I'm not sure why. Looks like a full install of KDE, if you can't remove aRts without removing KDE. Hmm...

I have the same problem, people here: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthre...=127120&page=2 say they resolved it but it doesn't work for my fe11s which is running Gentoo.

The video card is working very nicely by the way with the just released NVidia drivers.

If you get it to work, please tell me. Wireless internet should also be possible as people indicate here: http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=67307
I'm trying everything at the moment, i will keep you informed.

Check: http://www.iwebyoumind.com/index.php...=guest&lang=en
You need the very latest Alsa drivers (1.0.11)

Thanks Teek,

Everything works fine now with SUSE 10.1, presumably because it has the latest ALSA drivers included. I've tried 10.1 RC2, but not the new Goldmaster final version yet. I imagine there's no difference.

Good luck, and thanks.