KDE sound not working
 

Hi,

I recently replaced GNOME with KDE, but now I am getting a bad problem now. The sound doesn't work ever since I installed KDE. I know its not a problem with my sound card because it worked perfectly in GNOME and windows. I have no idea how I'd fix this. Anyone have any pointers to how I'd go about fixing this problem? I tried looking on the net for solution but found nothing good.

Thanks

KDE has its own sound system, aRTS, which sits on top of your normal sound system, e.g. Alsa

First step, test that the sound is still working underneath:

Make sure your volume on your speakers is not too high before trying this step!!

In a Konsole window, type

Press Ctrl+C to stop it.

This should send random static to the sound card. If nothing happens, turn the volume up slowly. Please post any error messages. If this step fails, it may not necessarily be a problem, but if it works, then you just need to tweak KDE's own settings. To do so:

1. Go into the KDE Control Centre, 'Sound & Multimedia', 'Sound System' control
2. Make sure it's enabled (default installation should enable it)
3. Go to Hardware tab
4. If you know which sound system you are using, choose it, if in doubt, choose Autodetect or ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)
5. Apply changes
6. Go back to General tab and test sound, you should hear a nice little 'wave' file.

If it's still not working, and you have had any specific errors at any stage, please post them, as there are various things that could have gone wrong. aRTS is usually a very good system, but occasionally there are some kinks to be worked out, as there is no de facto standard for sound in Linux, though ALSA is rapidly claiming the top spot.

One problem that you might want to look into is whether or not you have permission to access the sound devices. If the command I gave you above doesn't work as a normal user, try it as root. If this works, you may simply need to add your user to the 'audio' (or equivalent) group.

Thanks for the feedback.

The static sound works great. I didn't need to log in as root for that.
So I went into 'Sound System' in the Control Center, and the sound system was enabled. In the hardware tab, I tested the test sound with ALSA and auto detect, unfortunately, neither worked.

There were no error messages anywhere during any of the stages...
Any more ideas?

Thanks

Ok, that seems strange.

Do you have any other sound cards? Onboard sound as well as a dedicated card? A TV card?

Open 'kmix', there should be a drop-down list if you have more than one card. Also, while you're in kmix, this may seem obvious, but have you checked the volume - try turning everything right up, at least until the sound is working.

Do:
If more than one appears here, then KDE may be trying to use the wrong one.

If this is the case, go back to the settings page, and try overriding the device location to the one that worked with the static, i.e. /dev/dsp

Also, if this doesn't work, please post the result of:

I went into Kmix and there are two items in the drop-down list. One of them is Audigy 2 ZS and the other CA0106. I assume CA0106 is my on-board sound card that I am not using. I never installed drivers for them. Audigy 2 ZS is my peripheral sound card that I am using.

Here is the output of ls -l /dev/dsp* I do get an error message when I try to override the device location with /dev/dsp and /dev/dsp1

Here is the error message:
--------------------------------------------
Informational - artsmessage

Sound server informational message:

Error while initializing the sound driver:

device: /dev/dsp can't be opened for playback (No such file or directory)

The sound server will continue, using the null output device.
---------------------------------------------------

Also, I turned absolutely everything up to the max in Kmix, and blasted the speakers to the max. Still no sound.

I would give you the result of lspci, but it says:This is a very persistent problem, I will continue to experiment with options.

Any more ideas?

Been messing around with it for a while to no avail. No more ideas?

run lspci as root

Sorry, I've been away for a while.

I don't think you would learn anything from lspci that you don't already know. I'm surprised that you can't run it as a normal user - it works for me, but try it as root.

You shouldn't need it for this, but you may need to find it if you have problems in the future.

Out of interest, try the speakers or some headphones in the other sound card, and see if it works.

To change your default ALSA sound card, assuming alsa-utils is installed:
(based on my system, adjust accordingly)
Once this is done, you will need to restart the aRTS sound server to see any change.

I tried the lspci command as root but it still says its an unrecognized command. I am using fedora 8 if that matters. The ~$ asoundconf list doesn't work either, both as a normal user and root.

I tried to plug the sound into the on-board sound but it doesn't work.

I did find something new though. In KMenu > System > SoundCard Detection. The Audigy sound card that I am trying to use works when I test its sound. At first, KDE had my other on-board card set as default, which didn't work. So I switched it to my peripheral sound card and doing the testsound there works. Unfortunately though, it doesn't work anywhere else.:(

Have you got alsa-utils installed? (The package name may be slightly different under Fedora)

Does asoundconf work at all? Even if it doesn't list any hardware?

I don't have that KDE app in my menu, and I don't know what it would be under to install it, so I can't test that myself.

Other than that, I'm afraid I can't think of anything else at the moment, but I'll keep thinking.

Went into the package manager and I do have alsa-utils installed..
Yeah I tried the asoundconf list command with both root and normal user in the shell and in init 3, unfortunately it says its an unrecognized command. It doesn't list anything at all, it simply says its an unrecognized command.

I will keep experimenting with it. BTW: Thanks for all the help, I still wouldn't have made it this far without it.

It may be an Ubuntu/Fedora difference then.

Previous versions of alsa-utils just had the command 'set-default-card' instead of 'asoundconf set-default-card'

Unfortunately, I can't find what the equivalent for 'asoundconf list' is, however, I did manage to find someone who had the same sound card listed as 'Audigy2', so try
Incidentally, this chap was having a similar problem to your own:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-346574.html

If you are using Fedora 8, it uses pulse audio so that might be a problem

In that case, I can't help any more - I've never used pulse audio

I don't know why, but every time I install Linux with KDE, sound is "muted".

I just play some mp3 or cd and in Kmix I click in all "mute" bottons (one at the time) untill I get sound.

You can try it... it wont make it worst :cool: