As a disclaimer, I have read and read and read, including the Sound-HOWTO, numerous threads and the driver README file and I can't figure this one out.

So, here I am. When I upgraded my kernel in RH9, I lost sound. I ran <<sndconfig>> to no avail, but my soundcard manufacturer provides a driver for Linux.

Thus, I downloaded it, gunzipped it, tar -xvf'ed it and I have a folder with numerous driver-related files in it. The README says to make; make install; and then adjust modules.conf.

But, what directory should the driver files reside in?
What about <<./configure>>?
When is the source code compiled?
Is further configuration required?
By doing this, am I creating a module?
What's all that stuff about "building sound into the kernel"?
Will it work?
Will it wreck my system, rendering it unstable?

Last question, is this over a 's head?

Don't worry, your manurfacturer is being nice (who are they) in giving you a driver.

Basically, it is a module, which by performing the configure, make, make install commands will be configured, compiled and installed to the relevant place.

The configure makes sure you have the relevant stuff installed on the system to compile the driver.
make, does the compilation and linking that is required.
make install has to be as root (just type 'su' sans quotes to become the super user) and installs the module into the correct folder (and may do other installation steps).

So in answer to your other qusetions, just have faith that the make file (the configuration file for the make and make install steps) is correct and will install the relevant stuff where it needs to go.

Once its installed you will have to adjust /etc/modules.conf so that it will load the new sound driver. This should be told to you by either the documentation or by the driver compilation process. There may be a helpful little message at the end to tell you the next step.

After all that you should be singing along to kylie in no time :S

HTH

Alex

P.S. post back with any more questions, its what we're all here for.....

Thanks, Alex

Ugh.

I typed in:

./configure
make
make install
make clean

Then, I edited modules.conf with the following changes:

#alias sound-slot-0 via82cxxx_audio
alias sound-slot-0 cmaudio

I commented out the via82cxxx_audio (to remember what it was in case I had to go back; and added the second line, per the README instructions. As you asked (and can see) it's a C Media sound card (onboard, in my case).

But, it worked not:

I get this error at KDE login:

"ERROR_aRtsmessage

Sound server fatal error:

AudioSubSystem : : handle 10 : write failed

len=168, can_write=4096, ermo=17 (file exists)

This might be a sound hardware/driver specific problem (see aRts FAQ)"

What does this error message mean?
Can it be fixed?
Can I back out to where I was?

You can back out just by undoing what you were doing in the modules.conf file (good boy, kept his old settings....)

Anyway, looks like its just the aRts daemon from KDE throwing a strop. Once you get into KDE go to the control thingy, then sound and then disable it. Then restart X and hopefull things should be fine.

If not then we'll have to rethink (or do some searching).

I'm assuming that the problem has arisen because the aRts daemon doesn't know how to handle the drivers that you have (they;re not alsa drivers or the ones in the kernel).

HTH

Alex

P.S. try checking whether the sound works, at a console, try mpg123 an_mp3.mp3 see if it works. You may need to be in multi user console mode, not X. or atleast not in kde...

Bringing this one back up (I took a few days off from the problem), the introduction of the C Media sound driver has destablized my system to some degree, causing some boot operations to lag and a few quirks in desktop operation.

I started sniffing around at http://www.arts-project.org and learned at least a few things:

1. When I enter <<artsd>>, I get:

"Error while initializing the sound driver:
device /dev/dsp can't be opened (Resource temporarily unavailable)"

2. In the KDE Control Center, in the Sound tab, I get:

"No information available about Soundcard!"

3. It also appears that modules.conf reset itself to use:

alias sound-slot-0 via82cxxx_audio

rather than:

alias sound-slot-0 cmaudio

As a result, the error I posted in Post #3 has stopped coming up. However, the reference to the latter entry I made is completely gone.

4. In my /etc directory, I also have 3 modules.conf related files:

modules.conf
modules.conf~
modules.conf.bak

Can anyone tell me the difference among the 3 files?

5. Any thoughts?

try what does it output? your user has to be able to read/write to this file.

Does the sound work when you're root?

The three modules.conf look like backups. files with a ~ at the end are created by certain text editors (I know that Vi and derivatives do as well as pico/nano). One of them should contain your old file.

Alex

1. #ls - /dev/dep
crw------- 1 sab root 14, 3 Jan 30 02:24 /dev/dsp

2. There's no sound in root.

3. Interestingly, the modules.conf files only contain the old file. The system appears to have eliminated the change I made to the conf file.

4. And then, there's this (what I think intuitively is the root of the problem):

#cat /proc/pci |grep audio
Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 80).

Now, I am a noob after all, but isn't this an indication that RH/KDE/Linux thinks I have a VIA card

yes, what sort of card do you think that you have? its possible that your card actually runs a via chip, or that its a knock off or that linux is just stupid. not sure which is right.........

you could try searching on the net for info on that device, see what turns up.

sorry that that wasn't much use.

Alex

It's a C Media CMI9739/A onboard.

Actually, it was C Media that got me into the mess I'm in. They offer a driver for Linux and instructions at their site http://www.cmedia.com.tw on how to install the driver.

Clearly, they were inadequate !

I haven't the slightest idea how to do it, but it would seem to me that I need to teach my system the identity of my soundcard...

Thanks, Alex, for your help. I'll probably be back soon to work on it some more.