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By mimithebrain at 2006-06-04 22:06
[b]Audio[b]

You want sound, duh. Sound is cool, sound break the dulliness of your day with dings and pops. Except that if your on linux, sound, well, better hope you have one of those supported cards. Did I mention you might need to compile a kernel? How's your command line?
Stupidities to check for

Is the side knob turned on? high enough? Is the sound muted? Is "External Amplifier muted? If so, turn the sound knob up, high enough, unmute PCM and master, put them high enough, and turn External Amplifier on.

Googling

If you know the name of your card, google it! Google the name of your card and add "linux" as the last keyword. If your lucky, you will find it in the first few hits, otherwise, you may go up to the second page. You might want to try Linuxquestion's HCL too. You are looking for the name of the module to load. Possibly, if possible, if there is an already existing "howto make card xyz work on system xyz with distro zyx... use that... otherwise, just pick the name of the module to load and follow with me

Loading the modules

Once you've got the name of the module, type out lsmod and check if it's in the list.
If it is, we've got a problem, but the module is not the problem, follow on to the next paragraph.
If it's not, load it using modprobe [nameofmodule] If modprobe isn't there, either install it, upgrade your system, or use insmod.
If you built the kernel yourself, and you built it in, you should know how to debug the card already... but keep on reading the howto here

Permissions

Some distros have special permission for the devices. Type
Code:
ls -l /dev/dsp
ls -l /dev/audio
ls -l /dev/mixer
Now, if you are not reading something such as:
Code:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Dec 26 10:02 /dev/dsp -> sound/dsp
or better:
Code:
lrwxrwx--- 1 root audio blablabla /dev/dsp blablablabla
or again:
Code:
lrwxrwx--- 1 mimithebrain user blabla /dev/dsp blablablabla
you've got a permission problem.

To fix it, include your username to the audio group (if applicable to your distro, such as mandrake, or if the output to ls reports the "audio" string like in example2. Or run
Code:
chown root:audio /dev/dsp
and then include your username to the group... then
Code:
chmod 755 /dev/dsp
as root. (K/gnome menu, run command, xterm, su, enter root password, then your commands). Or do like I do and run
Code:
chown root:root /dev/dsp
then
Code:
chmod 777 /dev/dsp
if you are a single user, and don't fear being hacked and having someone listening to your microphone, otherwise, follow the distro's rules.

Card in use

Another stupid error is when a program is not designed to run with a sound server such as arts, esound, etc etc... If you are running KDE, install the arts plugin for the sound application you are using. For the other users, you might need to install the esound plugin... Install the plugin that fits the circonstances. If you want to know what application is using your card, type
Code:
/sbin/fuser /dev/dsp
it will report a PID, type
Code:
ps -A
and compare the list, find the PID, and look what's using it. If you want to kill all the applications using the sound care, type
Code:
/sbin/fuser -k /dev/dsp
Be warned: save your documents.

How do I know it's working?

Well try it! For those who know linux slightly more, and know how to stop Xorg and escape to the console. Do that, then type
Code:
cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp
then control+C when you know you're done and it works.

version 2.0 :)

by Dralnu on Sun, 2006-06-11 09:14
Sounds like some poor ignorant person to me...

by mimithebrain on Fri, 2006-06-16 18:59
I'm not sure if you're telling me I'm ignorant or if the theoretical person messing up by making the common mistakes described in my article is a poor ignorant person. I'll assume good faith and that you meant that this theoretical person is ignorant

In any case, these errors do happen. Unfortunatly, not everyone is aware of lsmod, lspci, alsamixer, or aware how to unmute their sound cards. These are basic troubleshooting steps that everyone should know. Since I didn't see this article anywhere, I decided to write it.

by guitronics on Sat, 2009-01-10 02:31
Quote:
Originally Posted by mimithebrain View Post
I'm not sure if you're telling me I'm ignorant or if the theoretical person messing up by making the common mistakes described in my article is a poor ignorant person. I'll assume good faith and that you meant that this theoretical person is ignorant

In any case, these errors do happen. Unfortunatly, not everyone is aware of lsmod, lspci, alsamixer, or aware how to unmute their sound cards. These are basic troubleshooting steps that everyone should know. Since I didn't see this article anywhere, I decided to write it.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

I thank you, mimithebrain for writing this tutorial. I'm a total NooBie and need as much basic info that I can get.

I find the "High on Intellectualism" posters BORING . Hey, I'm GLAD for you, you know everything, but need others' to reinforce your worth. If you're so smart, why don't you start your own Linux site.Then you can deal with the smart-aleck's.

I am poor in knowledge , and Ignorant to the ways of Linux...but I'm willing to learn, I'm trying to learn; and I don't need somebody calling me names and trying to humiliate me.

Just as everyone had to learn Linux at one time,I am trying to learn.

I thought that's what this forum was all about.


  



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