Ok, I've been trying for ages to get this working with no luck at all. The drivers bundled with 10.1 don't work correctly, either the OSS or the ALSA, google shows that a few people have had this problem before, but I can't seem to find an answer. I'm not QUITE a linux newb, but I'm defenitly not profecient at it yet either. I had to throw off the MS yoke and try something different though.

I'm not sure if you need any log files or anything along those lines, so any help would be greatly appreciated. I will NOT go back to windows! :-O

keep in mind, the more information you give out with the first post, the quicker you will get a useful response.

do you have alsa and alsa-utils installed? have you tried running "alsaconf" as root? do you know what sound chip is in the notebook? google says its a "CS4237B rev E audio chip"? run "lspci" to see if it confirms this (as root). i had an optiplex (400mhz) that almost went out the window because i could not configure alsa and sound easily. but if you hang in there, it is soooo rewarding when you finally figure it out.

Ok, here is the output from lspci, the marvell ethernet controller is a WG511v2 wlan card, thats working fine with ndiswrapper and the XP drivers, after a bit of hassle, and I assume the multimedia controller is the sound card... however that is the name of the driver (According to harddrake) so I don't know what the hell is going on, lol.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX Host bridge (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP bridge (rev 02)
00:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1220 (rev 02)
00:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1220 (rev 02)
00:07.0 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 02)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicGraph 256AV] (rev 12)
01:00.1 Multimedia audio controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicMedia 256AV Audio] (rev 12)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd.: Unknown device 1faa (rev 03)

And yes, I've run the alsaconf as root, and it gives me that option and to choose a 16bit legacy card. Which I am sure that it isn't.

ok, from your posted lspci output:

01:00.1 Multimedia audio controller: Neomagic Corporation NM2200 [MagicMedia 256AV Audio] (rev 12)

that is your sound chip.

i googled that info and found this link:

"that is about as far as i can help, as i am unfamiliar with drake/driva.

"And yes, I've run the alsaconf as root, and it gives me that option and to choose a 16bit legacy card. Which I am sure that it isn't.."

my on-board sound was found and configured only after i loaded the appropriate modules and ran alsaconf. it was found not in the first (pci) scan, but in scanning for legacy sound card (second) scan. hmm, it was listed in lspci, but configured as a legacy device.

think outside the box you must when linux using, my young padawan.

Ok, so another 2 days and no results. I have tried using alsaconf and scanned for legacy cards...it detected it but now it seems to be trying to load 2 duplicate drivers at startup, and it still wont work! This is getting really frustrating, but thank you for all your help, it really is appreciated.

did you visit the link to the alsa page specific for your sound chip, that i posted previous?

did you do the things the article said to do? still no joy?

8 or 16 bit sound is difficult to configure with alsa in my opinion. have you tried getting it working in kde (from the control center) using arts? esound?

i spent a week ( hour or two a day or until i got frustrated with it) to get my onboard sound working. i have a desktop, so i can drop in a 32-bit soundcard...you do not have that option with your notebook.

have you tried booting a knoppix live cd? ...knoppix is legendary for several things...namely for discovering linux device compatibility. if you can boot knoppix and everything (sound, in your case) works...then all you have to do is try to figure out how make the device work in your distribution of choice...at least you will know whether it is achievable or a lost cause.

bon chance, mon ami

Thanks....its been about a month of attempting this, I think I'm just going to give up...maybe try a diff distro that will make it work out of the packaging. Thanks for your help though, and yes, I tried EVERYTHING, also there are posts by other members that have said they got it working, I just can't pm them and they won't respond to me...so urgh. Thanks again, I think I'll go download the Mandriva 2006 powerpack and see if that works..if not, I might move to debian or ubuntu or something.