Hi all,

I'm mounting up small problems with my Slackware. I've been very happy with it until I bought a new VGA card: Asus card based on NVIDIA fx 5700.

I couldn't make it work with slack 10 standard kernel 2.4.26. When starting X the computer just hung up. I didn't even get Xserver log in /var/log/. X had been working fine with my NVIDIA MX-card. I recompiled the NVIDIA driver but it didn't help.

So I install kernel 267 + modules + headers from slack 10 cd 2. Now I get 3D acceleration BUT:

1) I lose sound. When I start kde it says that it can't find /dev/dsp. What should I do with this?

2) I lose printing. When using 2.4.26 kernel I had modules parport, parport_pc and lp loaded. Now they don't load when I start kernel 2.6.7. What should I do with this problem?

I'll enclose my modprobe.conf and lsmod and a bit of rc.modules

Thanks in advance!!

Mikko

-Module Size Used by
nvidia 4816852 22
ipt_REDIRECT 1920 0
ipt_MASQUERADE 2944 1
ipt_state 1792 13
ipt_limit 2048 17
ipt_length 1664 0
ipt_LOG 6016 16
ipt_REJECT 5376 0
ipt_TCPMSS 3968 1
ipt_iprange 1792 0
iptable_mangle 2304 0
iptable_nat 20780 3 ipt_REDIRECT,ipt_MASQUERADE
ip_conntrack 28168 4 ipt_REDIRECT,ipt_MASQUERADE,ipt_state,iptable_nat
iptable_filter 2432 1
ip_tables 15488 12 ipt_REDIRECT,ipt_MASQUERADE,ipt_state,ipt_limit,ipt_length,ipt_LOG,ipt_REJECT,ipt_TCPMSS,ipt_iprange ,iptable_mangle,iptable_nat,iptable_filter
snd_pcm_oss 49704 0
snd_mixer_oss 17408 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_intel8x0 32940 0
snd_ac97_codec 64644 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_pcm 80904 2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_intel8x0
snd_timer 21764 1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 10888 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
gameport 3712 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_mpu401_uart 6912 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_rawmidi 21028 1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device 7304 1 snd_rawmidi
snd 48484 9 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi, snd_seq_device
soundcore 6752 1 snd
ipv6 212064 12
e100 28800 0
8139too 20352 0
mii 4096 2 e100,8139too
crc32 4096 1 8139too
nls_cp437 5632 1
vfat 10880 1
fat 38336 1 vfat
nls_utf8 1792 3
ntfs 113388 2
ide_scsi 13316 0
serport 3200 0
visor 15632 0
usbserial 24688 1 visor
agpgart 26920 0
psmouse 17544 0
reiserfs 218658 1

---------------------------------------------------------------
and modprobe.conf

alias eth0 8139too
alias eth1 e100

alias char-major-195* nvidia

# --- BEGIN: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---
# --- ALSACONF verion 1.0.5 ---
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
alias sound-slot-0 snd-intel8x0
# --- END: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---
--------------------------------------------------------------------

#### PC parallel port support ###
if cat /proc/ksyms | grep "\[parport_pc\]" 1> /dev/null 2> /dev/null ; then
echo "parport0 is built-in, not loading module" > /dev/null
else
if [ -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/misc/parport_pc.o \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/misc/parport_pc.o.gz \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/kernel/drivers/parport/parport_pc.o \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/kernel/drivers/parport/parport_pc.o.gz ]; then
# Generic setup example:
/sbin/modprobe parport_pc
# Hardware specific setup example (required for PLIP and better
# performance in general):
#/sbin/modprobe parport_pc io=0x378 irq=7
fi
fi

#### Parallel printer support ###
if cat /proc/ksyms | grep "\[lp\]" 1> /dev/null 2> /dev/null ; then
echo "lp support built-in, not loading module" > /dev/null
else
if [ -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/misc/lp.o \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/misc/lp.o.gz \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/kernel/drivers/char/lp.o \
-o -r /lib/modules/$RELEASE/kernel/drivers/char/lp.o.gz ]; then
/sbin/modprobe lp
fi
fi

I'm guessing you lost sounds because the ALSA drivers were compiled for the previous kernel version. They version of the ALSA drivers has to match the kernel version. So, the version you currently have installed were compiled against the 2.4.26 kernel. You need to acquire and install either the Slack .tgz files for the ALSA drivers that pertain to your kernel -- or better yet, download the required source files from www.alsa-project.org and build them yourself. You will have to do this every time you install a new kernel, but then again, you'll get the latest and greatest sound drivers without having to rely on someone else to build and publish the .tgz versions.

You seem to have nailed the printing problem down. I had this problem when I first moved to the 2.6.x kernel. The easiest way to solve the problem is to put the following in your /etc/rc.d/rc.local file:

/sbin/modprobe parport_pc
/sbin/modprobe lp

The parport_pc module will load both parport_pc and parport. If you decide to build the ALSA drivers from source, you may also need to add the correct "modprobes" for that as well to the rc.local file.

Hope that helps.

thanks for advice. I actually kompiled myself a 2.6.9 kernel and I seem to have got it all back. I know there's a problem with NVIDIA and 2.6.9, but I think I'll get that solved too pretty soon.

Mikko

Mikko, its already solved in the latest nvidia dirvers .

also, in slack, you need to edit the new rc.modules to reenable the hardware to autoload on boot, like parallel port printing.