Only Sound when logged in as Root

iancork01 · 03-27-2003, 03:16 AM

Hi Everyone,
I'm experiencing sound problem on Linux 8.0.
Sound works fine when logged in as root but no luck when logged in as general user.

The sound card is AC'97.
Anyone have any ideas?

salparadise · 03-27-2003, 03:53 AM

from my own experience...
with mandrak 9
you have to enable the sound thing in both gnome and kde and enlightenment
it is set to off by default

look in various menus for Sound

0x0001 · 03-27-2003, 07:32 AM

Usually sound is written to /dev/dsp. Maybe generic users have no write permission to /dev/dsp.

just a thought

macewan · 03-27-2003, 07:36 AM

adduser iancork01 audio

syngin · 03-27-2003, 08:36 AM

how can you then give a user access to /dev/dsp?
whats the command?

macewan · 03-27-2003, 04:36 PM

did you add yourself to the audio group?

fsbooks · 03-27-2003, 06:59 PM

Yes, certainly I would say permissions.

In redhat there is a file called /etc/security/console.pems which sets up permissions and ownship for many files and devices upon boot. You would have to modify this file. Perhaps there is a GUI will do this for you, but that I could not help you with. There is no better tool than vi :-)

In suse (PPC 7.3, i386 8.0) a similar file is called /etc/permissions.

You neglected to say what distribution you used, or whether you built your own uniquely. Such information can be helpful.

You may or may not have an audio group, which will help control usage, the versions of Suse I use have one, my RH 7.3 does not. All you must do is make sure that the general user has permission to write to /dev/dsp. Note that /dev/dsp in Suse appears to be a link to /dev/dsp0 (and as such the pertinent file to check) while on my RH system /dev/dsp is the real device.