Slack 9.1, ALSA 0.9.6 and ALSA 0.9.7
 

I recently (as of Friday) upgrade my laptop from Slack 9 to Slack 9.1. Everything pretty much went smoothly... except for sound. So after poking around, I went to ( www*alsa-project*org ) the ALSA Project and downloaded the latest version (oddly enough, released on Friday.. talk about timing!). I found my card (ESS 1998), downloaded all the files necessary, followed the instructions, compiled and modprobe'd when done.

Lo' and behold, I have sound!! But...

When I boot, it still looks for the old sound files (I assume that's ALSA 0.9.6). I want the kernel to stop looking for those and look for the ones I've specified. I've tried depmod -a hoping that would help (nope).

Ideas??:confused: (please, something other than recompile -- recompiling kernel burps ugly on my laptop and the kernel panics live there)

For those curious:

Panasonic CF-48
PIII/600
10GB
ESS 1998, v12 Sound Card

The Fact that modprobe got your sound to work means the modules are good.

To get the modules to load on demand cut and paste this into your /etc/modules.conf file as root.

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-maestro3
# module options should go here

# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

Well, that loads it but I still have to use alsamixer to actually hear the sound (aka unmute it). Any suggestions on having sound active on boot up?

Also, I have the following errors in syslog (LOTS of them):

And it still pulls errors when attempted to load other versions.. Perhaps using pkgtool to remove ALSA 0.9.6?

after you use "alsamixer" to unmute it do you do "alsactl store" as root to save the settings for next boot. If not then that is why it boots muted.

D'oh! Thanks... :D ...

MsMittens sticks a RTFM stickie on her forehead

Ok. An update.

The command should be alsactl store 0 (the 0 represents which card it applies to -- in this case, because I have only one card, it applies to card #0). Hopefully, that holds the settings (as alsactl store by itself didn't).

I also removed ALSA 0.9.6 using pkgtool (and it remove 0.9.7 it seemed so I recompiled it, etc.). But I still get that maestro3 not found error during boot it. It still seems like the kernel is looking for non-existent module. Is there a file I can modify to stop it from looking for this particular module?

Slackware can poke in modules several ways. If you are using a stock kernel the modules can be inserted by the startup script in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules or they can come from /etc/modules.conf

I compiled my own alsa modules (0.9.7-> 0.97a ->0.97b ->0.97c) for just one sound card to keep things light and simple I always used the directions at the alsa-site which used modules.conf to call up the modules. Slackware uses both the old unix style startup scripts and the SysVinit scripts. See if anything is calling up the modules in rc.modules and if so then either comment out rc.modules or modules.conf.

Hrmmm.. I looked in rc.modules and I don't see it in there. Out of curiosity, how does one remark out in rc.modules as they all begin with #??

Oh.. and thanks for all the help and patience.. :)

MsMittens: Because you did an upgrade (as I did).... there is a new /etc/hotplug/blacklist.new file sitting there. I bet you didn't review that and mv /etc/hotplug/blacklist.new /etc/hotplug/blacklist did you??? I think the OSS sound modules are getting modprobed by hotplug. Hence the errors since ALSA is already took control of your card. Take a look at it...

Placing a "#" sign in front of a command will "comment it out" or prevent it from be executed.

Also used to document what a portion of a particular script does. An example is

"# ALSA portion"

Sigh. This hates me. I'm convinced. alsamixer store 0 isn't working.

I'm not finding the troublesome modules in rc.modules (shepper, am I reading right in that I put a # in front of the existing #s?) or modules.dep.

Tried hotplug/blacklist. That didn't work.

*grumble*

One "#" character is enough. Anything that follows # is not executed on that line..

"# ALSA portion" is a comment that tells you that the following 2 lines:

" alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-maestro3"

Load the ALSA drivers.

"#" is also usefull in debugging scripts

# alias char-major-116 snd
# alias snd-card-0 snd-maestro3

prevents the "alias char-major-116 snd" and "alias snd-card-0 snd-maestro3" modules from
being run. If it does not fix your problem it makes it easy to restore the file buy deleting the
"#" sign.

The /etc/rc.d/rc.modules uses this method to load modules. After a new install all the entries are
"commented out" To get a particular module in the /etc/rc.d/rc.modules file to load remove the "#" sign with a text editor.

For example: "# /sbin/modprobe apm" APM is the modules that controls power management
(battery saving) in a laptop. If this module is not running (lsmod command as a user shows you the modules that are running) removing the "#" will cause the command
/sbin/modprobe apm to be executed at boot. The the lsmod command should show that apm is an active module.

Ok. I found the rc.modules file and uncommented the section needed. But I still had to run the alsactl restore to get sound. I've since put that into rc.local so that can be run during bootup.

However, it's still trying to load the "bad" modules and for the life of me, I can't find these things.

Oh.. one more thing, I noticed that there was a rc.modules and rc.modules.new. Since rc.modules seemed to have a newer date, I modified that.

Print here exactly what your dmesg shows after a boot and what lsmod prints out, it would help a lot.

And the fiile you modify to keep it from auto probing for a particular module IS the /etc/hotplug/blacklist.

I had modified (I thought) blacklist before but it might have been blacklist.new. Anyways, thanks for pointing out it was to be just blacklist. It surpressed some of the errors but now I get the following:

And the lsmod produces:

shepper, many thanks. I finally got alsamixer and alsactl store to play nice. Now that it's part of the boot sequence, I'm coming up with sound! :D

Now to just get rid of those useless errors.