gargamel wrote:

<Quote>
CORRECTION: Slackware doesn't route sound *randomly* to PCI soundcard and onboard sound. Instead, right after configuring it the PCI card is used. When there's isn't any sound for a few minutes or so, it quietly switches to onboard sound. From that moment on, only onboard sound works.
To switch back to PCI soundcard, I re-configure it. Again it works, as long as I keep it busy, but is being dropped by the system, when it is idle for a while. Weird! (But reproducable).
</quote>

Remember we talked about sound probs on my husband's SuSE system? That is EXACTLY the behavior I was experiencing with SuSE 9.1 and the 2.6 kernel! I didn't realize it was defaulting to the onboard soundchip, but what you're describing is what was happening to me, too. Makes sense now. And I even disabled onboard sound in my BIOS!

BTW, I finally blew away SuSE. I'm going to put PCLinuxOS or Mepis on it instead. I tell you, I'm getting more and more leary about installing v.10 over my perfect 9.1 system...

I really hope you find a solution for this.

Siri Amrit

I had a no sound problem on my laptop after installing Slack 10 also. I am using the 2.4 kernel though, and not the 2.6. It worked after I did a kernel recompile and included only the kernel drivers for my sound card. I also built them into the kernel, and didn't include them as modules.

my soundcard is Ali 5455 and detected by alsa. But i have driver of Ali 5451 so how can i install my driver..Whats your sound card model?

<rant>
It seems from what I'm reading in this and other forums, a lot of people have no prob w/ sound, but a lot of people do, even if they didn't before. The solution seems to be a kernel recompile and a lot of fiddling with modules. IMO, I shouldn't have to go through all that just to get a working system with commonly supported hardware. I didn't have to do all that w/ 9.1. Any OS or kernel that needs so much work just to work out bugs is flawed.
</rant>

I agree with you to a certain extent, but then again how many Slackware users recompile their kernel no matter if stuff works or if it doesn't? I would probably bet more than half. To me many people start using Slackware because of how configurable it is. You don't have to worry about downloading a specific package, even though having a .tgz package is nice. From my experience with Redhat, there was rarely a time when I would try to compile a program from source and wouldn't get loads of errors. I have yet to have that problem with slack. IMHO, the base configuration is just something to get a working system going, while trying to work as well as it can with your hardware. If it doesn't work by default, then just do a little hacking around and try to figure out the problem. I think this helps you learn more about your system and how it works, and if you don't want to have to learn anything or use the command line, then switch to another distro that does everything for you.

I am not saying that all the other distros suck, and that everyone should use Slackware. I wouldn't recommend Slackware to anyone who was just starting out with Linux. I always tell people to start off with something like Mandrake or Fedora, and then once they get fairly proficient(sp?) and/or tired of that, give Slackware a try.

Again, in my opinion, the configurability and not having to download a distro specific package is what makes Slackware great, not having a Slackware that does everything for you and has specific patches made only for it.

BTW, this is just my opinion.

Well, actually they have sound troubles with 2.6.7, it's a testing kernel so i don't see why they want to use it. The kernel recompile thing is only to get that testing kernel to work, if they stick with the default one they shouldn't be having any troubles at all..

When Gargamel started this thread he said that it hadn't worked in his original config with the stable 2.4.26 kernel, so he tried the 2.6 kernel as an alternative, and it didn't work with that, either. I plan on using the stable kernel, not testing, but if it isn't "stable" either...

Don't get me wrong, I love the simplicity and configurability of Slackware, that's why it's my main system on my main box. I love compiling my software from source. I've tried Mandrake, Redhat, SuSE, Debian and many of their derivatives and none come close to Slack. But IMHO, if one has common, commonly supported hardware- neither cutting edge nor too old, nothing exotic, a kernel recompile should be an option for tweaking performance, not a necessity for getting something as basic as sound to work.

Did anyone get this issue resolved???

I found out the answer, at least for my Inspiron 5100 running Slackware 10.0 release. It's not a 'buggy' relase by the way, it seems to be a hotplug related issue (specific to the intel8x0 soundchip on my laptop). hotplug is grabbing the ALSA intelx8x0m driver, which takes over device 0 for my soundcard). An lspci should help determine this if anyone is having issues related to Slack 10 and sound. By putting

snd-intel8x0m

in my /etc/hotplug/blacklists file, the problem went away (hotplug no longer grabs the intelx80m alsa module -- which appears to be some type of modem driver). This should resolve your issue. Others running the sound chip on different hardware platforms are having the same problems.

Hope this helps!

Yes, I was able to solve it by choosing the "right" sound chip. I have now sound with kernel 2.4.26 on my old P120 laptop and with kernel 2.6.7 on my desktop. The latter has onboard sound plus PCI sound. Connecting my speakers to the onboard sound chip and alsaconf-iguring that I got it working.

BTW, I did no re-compile of anything. Both 2.4.26 and 2.6.7, and the accompanying ALSA packages, are the binaries that come with Slack 10.

So far, I think that Slackware 10 is one of the best Linuces I have ever used. I had only very few problems, but they could all be resolved quickly with assitance from here. 8-)

gargamel

Mess with the PCM Out pre3d/post3d setting. My sound does not like pre3d, makes it all watered down

as for those saying "still no sound" make sure there are no muted channels (M at the top of the bar)

once you have got it where you want it use

#alsaconfig
to detect card and update modules.conf

#touch /etc/asound.state
#alsactl store
to save the settings ot /etc/asound.state

#alsactl restore
to restore after reboot, halt, ....

see http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/ALSA.html <<---- great resource for alsa install and setup

This ended my Inspiron 5100 slackware sound problems. I compiled sound card support and the intel audio driver as modules, reinstalled the alsa sound modules, added the snd-intel8x0m and intel-8x0 modules to the hotplug blacklist, rebooted and ran alsaconf. It recognized the sound card, and alsamixer actually opened. Amazing.


Thanks sanders.

Can anyone help me get the sound working for a Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 under Slackware 10?? I had no problems with version 9.1, worked from the start.....but i've tried all the tricks people have posted and still nothing works

norskkriger, if you are still having problems, someone will help you, but I would recommend starting a new thread, and state

your hardware
your kernel version
is it a stock slackware kernel or compiled by yourself?
are you running hotplug/udev?
what tricks you tried already
output from 'lsmod'

thats a lot of stuff, but it will get more attention than your generalised post tagged onto another - tobyl

I got the alsa sound up and running with the 2.6.7 kernel. Now the only problem is that MPlayer fails to find /dev/mixer which was there before with S9.1. Anybody knows what to link and to where? In /dev/snd I've got this:

crw-rw-rw- 1 root audio 116, 0 2004-07-15 18:16 controlC0
crw-rw--w- 1 root audio 116, 24 2004-07-15 18:16 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw-rw- 1 root audio 116, 16 2004-07-15 18:16 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw--w- 1 root audio 116, 25 2004-07-15 18:16 pcmC0D1c
crw-rw--w- 1 root audio 116, 26 2004-07-15 18:16 pcmC0D2c
crw-rw--w- 1 root audio 116, 27 2004-07-15 18:16 pcmC0D3c
crw-rw-rw- 1 root audio 116, 20 2004-07-15 18:16 pcmC0D4p
crw-rw-rw- 1 root audio 116, 1 2004-07-15 18:16 seq
crw-rw-rw- 1 root audio 116, 33 2004-07-15 18:16 timer

I have also added myself to the audio group btw...

I don't know, but it may have to do with 2.6.7 using udev...
It creates devices as and when needed, the old /dev/ files are gone with kernel 2.6. But unfortunately, the mechanism does not (yet) support everything that was there before.

Not sure, if this is your problem, at all, but you might try to create the missing device file by yourself, using mknod.

gargamel