I am just finishing upgrading SUSE 9.1 from KDE 3.2.something (I have the latest security patches and new kernel upgrades installed as well- the sound was still working) using yast2 and resolving a thousand and one dependency issues. Everything seems to work except for the sound now, which was working fine on my Sony laptop: PCG-Z505LS. I have tried re-installing ALSA, and still nothing works, this is what I get on a hardware probe for sound. It looks like two drivers are loaded to the kernel:

20: PCI 09.0: 0401 Multimedia audio controller
[Created at pci.244]Unique ID: WL76.ySXJ9Zpv4g0
SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:09.0
SysFS BusID: 0000:00:09.0
Hardware Class: sound
Model: "Sony YMF-744B [DS-1S Audio Controller]"
Vendor: pci 0x1073 "Yamaha Corporation"
Device: pci 0x0010 "YMF-744B [DS-1S Audio Controller]"
SubVendor: pci 0x104d "Sony Corporation"
SubDevice: pci 0x8081
Revision: 0x02
Memory Range: 0xfecf0000-0xfecf7fff (rw,non-prefetchable)
I/O Ports: 0xfc00-0xfc3f (rw)
I/O Ports: 0xfcac-0xfcaf (rw)
IRQ: 9 (43679 events)
Driver Info #0:
Driver Status: ymfpci is not active
Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe ymfpci"
Driver Info #1:
Driver Info: snd-ymfpci
Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

I try modprobe ymfpci and get:

linux:/home/sanjaya # modprobe ymfpci
WARNING: Error inserting uart401 (/lib/modules/2.6.5-7.202.7-default/kernel/sound/oss/uart401.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)
FATAL: Error inserting ymfpci (/lib/modules/2.6.5-7.202.7-default/kernel/sound/oss/ymfpci.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

linux:/home/sanjaya # yast2 sound summary

* YMF-744B [DS-1S Audio Controller]
* Not configured yet.

YaST2 sound> add

Error:
The kernel module snd-ymfpci for sound support
could not be loaded. This can be caused by incorrect
module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.


I have tried removing them, with:

modprobe -r ymfpci

modprode -r snd-ymfpci

I used alsaconf to configure alsa after using Yast2 to install the ALSA rpm.

This is what I get after the alsaconf:

YaST2 sound> add


Error:
The kernel module snd-ymfpci for sound support
could not be loaded. This can be caused by incorrect
module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.

After running alsaconf:

Soundcard Selection:
Following card(s) are found on your system.
Choose a soundcard to configure:

ymfpci Yamaha Corporation YMF-744B (DC-1S Audio Controller) (rev 02)

I selected OK to configure ymfpci:

It says configuring snd-ymfpci
Do you want to modify /etc/modprobe.d/sound
(and /etc/modprobe.conf if present)? ## modprobe.conf is not present on my system##

I click YES

It says:

OK, sound driver is configured.

ALSA CONFIGURATOR

will prepare the card for playing now.

Now I'll run alsa sound init script, then I'll use amixer to raise the default volumes. You can change the volume later via a mixer program such as alsamixer or gamix.

I click OK:

It says:

Loading driver...
Shutting down sound driver done
Starting sound driver: ymfpci done
Restoring the previous sound setting failed
Setting default volumes...

Then I get a screem which says:



───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │
│ The mixer is set up now for for playing. │
│ Shall I try to play a sound sample now? │
│ │
│ NOTE: │
│ If you have a big amplifier, lower your volumes or say no. │
│ Otherwise check that your speaker volume is open, │
│ and look if you can hear test sound. │
│ │
├─────────────────────────────────

ALSA lib confmisc.c:672:(snd_func_card_driver) cannot find card '0'
ALSA lib conf.c:3493:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such device
ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings
ALSA lib conf.c:3493:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such device
ALSA lib confmisc.c:1072:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name
ALSA lib conf.c:3493:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such device
ALSA lib conf.c:3962:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such device
ALSA lib pcm.c:2099:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
aplay: main:544: audio open error: No such device


No sound,


===============================================================================
It says:

Now ALSA is ready to use.
For adjustment of volumes, use your favorite mixer.

Have a lot of fun!

Then I check with yast2 sound summary:

* Sound card
* Configured as snd-card-0.


* YMF-744B [DS-1S Audio Controller]
* Not configured yet.


?? WHAT IS HAPPENING ??!! It has NOT been alot of fun...

I love Linux but really this stuff drives me crazy...what next to do??

You done one huge massive upgrade without taking checkpoints to see if everything was working fine, now, we have to assume everything is defective until proven otherwise.

It's my opinion that there is two issues:
Kernel hasn't the module anymore.
KDE's arts is jamming the card in additing to kernel issues.

Sooo... check this... lsmod, ls -l /dev/dsp, check in /usr/src/linux/.config if your module is there, or check it out by doing "make menuconfig" in /usr/src/linux. If it's not there, include it, recompile your kernel, install it... and reboot and try again.

At that point, we will tackle the next problems.