Debian Sid - ALSA and a stock 2.6.5 kernel
 

Argh!

Ok..i was using OSS fine (well, kinda) on a 2.4.26 kernel on Debian Sid, but then i decided to upgrade to a 2.6 kernel and use ALSA. I apt-got the kernel image, headers and source as well as alsa-utils and alsa-base, as well as updating my packages etc.

The kernel install went off fine, had to fiddle with the mouse a bit and reinstall the nvidia drivers, but thats all good.

Then i come to try and get ALSA working with my Sound Blaster Live 5.1 card.

Using this tut - Ive configured ALSA how it says i should, altered my modules.conf file to load the ALSA driver, i also ran Alsaconf and it ran and detected my card fine but finishes with this error -

This is the relevant modules.conf (and is the same in /etc/modutils/alsa) section -

After some more fiddling, i found that emu10k1 and sound was still being loaded at boot, so using rmmod i removed them, and then alsaconf would work and i could get sound through Alsa. Ive also run update-modules, to try and prevent emu10k1 from loading. Ive checked modconf and it isnt installed as a module, at least. Where else should i look to stop emu10k1 loading and interfering with snd-emu10k1 and Alsa, at boot? I know others have got Alsa to work on a stock kernel in debian, so I shouldnt need to recompile one (i will and can if i have to though).

What am i doing wrong?

Thanks!

Best bet is a recompile.

Re: Debian Sid - ALSA and a stock 2.6.5 kernel
 

Hopefully you mean you are changing the /etc/alsa/modutils/1.0 which would be where the symbolic link for the file /etc/modutils/alsa ends up.

Code:

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>$ ls -l /etc/modutils/alsa
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root    root          22 2004-03-30 22:40 /etc/modutils/alsa -> /etc/alsa/modutils/1.0

---

Then running the update-modules to enter any changes in the file into the /etc/modules.conf to be used on the next boot.

Quote:

Code: alias char-major-116 snd alias char-major-14 soundcore options snd major=116 cards_limit=4 device_mode=0660 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 #alias /dev/dsp* snd-pcm-oss alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1 #alias snd-card-1 snd-serial #alias snd-card-2 snd-share #alias snd-card-3 snd-virmidi alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0 #alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1 #alias sound-slot-2 snd-card-2 #alias sound-slot-3 snd-card-3

That does not look like any file that debconf would have come up with where did you get that. You definitely need the #alias /dev/dsp* snd-pcm-oss line uncommented then run update-modules as root. Here is my file it is a stock Debian one and now that I look at the section again you are missing alias snd-slot-0 snd-card-0 in it as well.

Code:

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>$ cat /etc/alsa/modutils/1.0
### DEBCONF MAGIC
# This file was automatically generated by alsa-base's debconf stuff

alias char-major-116 snd
alias char-major-14 soundcore

options snd major=116 cards_limit=4

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
alias /dev/dsp* snd-pcm-oss

alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1

alias snd-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-slot-0 snd-slot-0

---

Quote:

After some more fiddling, i found that emu10k1 and sound was still being loaded at boot, so using rmmod i removed them, and then alsaconf would work and i could get sound through Alsa. Ive also run update-modules, to try and prevent emu10k1 from loading. Ive checked modconf and it isnt installed as a module, at least. Where else should i look to stop emu10k1 loading and interfering with snd-emu10k1 and Alsa, at boot? I know others have got Alsa to work on a stock kernel in debian, so I shouldnt need to recompile one (i will and can if i have to though). What am i doing wrong? Thanks!

Do you have discover installed I had a similar problem removing the package solved it. And check in the /etc/modules to make sure the emu10k1 module is not there as well.

Ive sorted it, thanks :) All it was in the end was that emu10k1 was still being loaded by /etc/modules, once I removed it from there (it was there twice, oddly), ALSA worked perfectly.

Thanks!

K. Good. Did you remove it from modules.d, or straight from modules? Unless you do it through modules.d, it will be added again next time update-modules runs.

Just from modules, I dont have a modules.d (unless its somewhere other than under /etc/), and I ran a update-modules just to check, and emu10k1 wasnt re-added.

Actually, a 2.6 kernel will get its module info from /etc/modprobe.d and /etc/modprobe.

It gets the information needed from the /etc/modprobe.conf which in turn get its information from the files in the /etc/modprobe.d/ directory when the update-modules is run, the /lib/modules/modprobe.conf file and the /etc/modules (BTW it is never used by update-modules) file which still works the same as it did with a 2.4 kernel.

Oh... thats an And? I thought it was instead... my bad.