OK, I'm having trouble figuring out how to set up my sound card with Slackware 9.0. I have an IBMPL and onboard Crystal Audio sound. I can't figure out how to set to the audio hardware setup. When I search around I get some info that you gotta run the sndconfig command. So I open a console in KDE and switch user to root, but when I type in sndconfig it says command not found.

I'm a total linux noob so I'm having some trouble with this. I installed Slackware OK but the audio didn't setup automatically.

sndconfig is only a Red Hat tool, in order to set it up in Slackware you'll have to set it up manually by working out exactly which module you need to load to get the card working, adding or uncommenting the appropriate entry in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules and adding any required options, including the following:

to /etc/modules.conf.

OK I see what you mean. But how do you edit this /etc/modules config. With pico? Or am I still confused?

You can use any text editor so just pick the one you normally use. I use mcedit personally as that's the one I'm most comfortable with but if you like pico feel free to use it instead as long as it can load and save standard ASCII text files it'll work.

OK I'm starting to figure this out. But I notice that when I start KDE I get this message:

Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No such device)
The sound server will continue, using the null output device.

Does this mean my sound is set up but I just need to configure the /etc/modules.conf. or do I have to setup the /etc/rc.d/rc.modules with the alsa driver which I think is what I need to use my IBM crystal audio. If so how do I add it to the rc.modules.

Thanks for the resposes LSD. I think I should have tried a different version of linux to learn on. Maybe I should switch to gentoo.

Yep, all you should have to do is add the three alias lines I mentioned earlier to modules.conf as it's the lack of these that's causing the error. KDE is looking to the /dev/dsp to output its sound but without a device attached to it it can't so it's falling back to the null device which of course means you can't hear anything it all. If the sound module is already loaded after you've added those lines you're going to have to quit out of KDE (and therefore X), remove the module using the -r switch with the modprobe command before modprobe'ing it again so it can see the new device aliases. At this point you should be able to startx and KDE should output sound just fine. You might have to adjust the permissions on the dsp, mixer and sequencer devices if you want to allow access to them by non-root users (which is probably a good idea) but other than that, no further configuration should be necessary.

LSD I still need some help. I ran lsmod in the /ect/dev directory and I got:

Module Size Used by Not tainted
soundcore 3332 0 (autoclean)
keybdev 1952 0 (unused)
mousedev 4212 1
hid 18596 0 (unused)
usbmouse 2008 0 (unused)
input 3200 0 [keybdev mousedev hid usbmouse]
uhci 24560 0 (unused)
usbcore 58144 1 [hid usbmouse uhci]
pcmcia_core 38112 0
ide-scsi 8048 0
eepro100 19316 1
mii 2240 0 [eepro100]


So I figure that soundcore is my sound module. I edited the modules.conf and out in:

alias /dev/dsp soundcore
alias /dev/sequencer soundcore
alias /dev/mixer soundcore

but I still get:

Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No such device)
The sound server will continue, using the null output device.

when I start KDE. I don't get what you mean when you say use modprobe -r before modprobing again. I put in modprobe -r but when I put in modprobe it said something like no module specified.

Did I put in the right module in the module.conf?

Old Slackware saying "Ask 5 Slackers a question and get 7 different answers"

Sound is presently complicated but should get easier in the future. If the kernel you are using, say the bare.i, has the particular sound driver you need you will get sound without having to do anything. If sound doesn't work it means that the kernel you are using does not have that particular driver compiled as a module. Sound drivers can either be an integral part of the kernel or a module. Slackware's bare.i has some but not all available sound drivers as a module and none are in the kernel. There are also modules that have been installed (the kernel-modules tgz file that was installed) and those modules can be "activated" by the command /sbin/modprobe sb16 for the soundblaster 16 module. So as LSD said you can go to /etc/rc.d/rc.modules and remove the "#" from the module you want loaded at boot.

How do you know which one to uncomment? Best is to check the hardware documentation if you have it. If you are using an older computer the lspci (lower case LSPCI) will list onboard sound chips and pci devices.

The other answer is to use the ALSA drivers. This is what linux is moving toward and should make things easier in the future. They can be implemented now but take additional work. They are nice once installed. Still you have to know what CM driver you are using.

Yeah, soundcore isn't a driver module, it's as it's name suggests, the core of the kernel sound system. You still need a driver module (which can be either OSS or ALSA) and that's what needs to be aliased to the device nodes I mentioned earlier. I was under the impression you'd already found out what module you needed so didn't pursue that angle any further. That's also why I mentioned you may have to remove the module first, as I'd assumed you'd already edited rc.modules with the appropriate module line and it had already been loaded at the next boot requiring it to be unloaded and then reloaded in order to take to the new aliases. I apologise for any confusion I may have caused.

Probably the easiest way to find out which module you need is to find out how the Windows drivers identify it and then use those terms and the word Linux as a Google search. At least one of the returned hits on the first page will have the inf you're looking for. Once you have the module name, set up the appropriate alias entries as I outlined above.

With modprobe, and again I apologise for not being entirely clear, you have to specify which module you want probed removed as an argument like this:

modprobe modulename

loads the module and

modprobe -r modulename

removes it.

Thanx, I'm really having a hardtime with this linux. Once I figure it out though I shouldn't have to much problems.

OK now I just have to figure out how to install the ALSA drivers. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Thanks LSD and shepper. I got my sound working. I uncommented the crystal sound option in the rc.modules file. Then i added the lines to the modules.conf, rebooted and lo and behold there was sound. So far I have cranked the sound in KMix and the sound is a little low but isn't too bad. I suspect that I probably don't have the exact sound driver I need but for now I have sound. Next I got some other things to work out, like getting the wheel to work on my radioshack usb wheel mouse and figuring out how to burn CD's with my ide cd burner.

Off topic: for your wheel mousr you'll need to either run xf86config again (as root) and setup your mouse again (choosing USB or Intellimouse as your mouse type).
If still no scroll wheel, type pico /etc/X11/XF86Config
and scroll (no pun intended) down to the input section where your mouse is.

You'll need to add the line
Device "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" under the rest of those device bits you see.


P.S. I think its "4 5". Do a search in this forum for this same thing and thes answer is there, this is how I got mine working.

Thanx ludeKing, I'll let you know what happens.

Well I added the lines and the wheel still doesn't work. Here is my xf86config:

Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"

# On platforms where PnP mouse detection is supported the following
# protocol setting can be used when using a newer PnP mouse:

# Option "Protocol" "Auto"

# The available mouse protocols types that you can set below are:
# Auto BusMouse GlidePoint GlidePointPS/2 IntelliMouse IMPS/2
# Logitech Microsoft MMHitTab MMSeries Mouseman MouseManPlusPS/2
# MouseSystems NetMousePS/2 NetScrollPS/2 OSMouse PS/2 SysMouse
# ThinkingMouse ThinkingMousePS/2 Xqueue
Option "Protocol" "PS/2"

# The mouse device. The device is normally set to /dev/mouse,
# which is usually a symbolic link to the real device.

Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"
# Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
# Option "Device" "/dev/ttyS0"
# Option "Device" "/dev/ttyS1"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

# When using XQUEUE, comment out the above two lines, and uncomment
# the following line.

# Option "Protocol" "Xqueue"

# Baudrate and SampleRate are only for some Logitech mice. In
# almost every case these lines should be omitted.

# Option "BaudRate" "9600"
# Option "SampleRate" "150"

# Emulate3Buttons is an option for 2-button Microsoft mice
# Emulate3Timeout is the timeout in milliseconds (default is 50ms)

# Option "Emulate3Buttons"
# Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"

# ChordMiddle is an option for some 3-button Logitech mice

# Option "ChordMiddle"

EndSection


I'm using a radioshack USB wheel mouse. Can anyone help?

As well as the ZAxisMapping option you also need an option to tell X how many the mouse has. Pop the following in above the ZAxisMapping option (I don't think it really matters so long as it's in the mouse section but it's best to keep this thing as neat as possible so hand-edits are easy) and you should be right: