SOLVED! Frustrated Newbie - Sound
 

Hello,

I am a newbie. I posted a similar question (more detailed) in the newbie forum, but still have not resolved my problem. I cannot get sound to work on my system. Do detailed instructions exist for setting up sound? If so, where can I find them? I know that there are different ways (oss, ALSA, etc), at this point, I don't care which. I just want to get it to work :)
Thanks for any asisstance.

It would help to know the sound hardware you're running. ALSA is the preferred choice, and when you install it and run alsaconf, you will want to know which module to choose for your sound chip. If your computer is new, there may not be a kernel module available. You would need to fetch source code and compile a module.

I had the same problem with Mandrake 9.0, couldn't get the drivers working. Couldn't get it to work with Suse either. Soon as i installed Mandrake 10.1 i had sound. I now use KUbuntu and everything is hunky dory (as long as i don't want 3D acceleration on my ATI9600 of course).
My point is, try another distro or version, just stick it on an extra partition (or hard drive) and see if it works.
There's not a great deal of difference between Linux distros really (although i've been mightily impressed with the Debian package manager as opposed to RPM), so just try a few.

The box is far from new; it is built from abandoned parts :). It is built around a Compaq with a Celeron 633. The sound is onboard. For video I had to use i810 drivers (I think that i810 is the chipset??). lspci reports of the sound : 0000:00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801AA AC'97 Audio (rev 02)

I will go with ALSA, if I can find instructions for installing. I have tried Google, but everything I find assumes more knowlege of Linux than I have. Can you help?

Tried running "alsaconf" as root? This will also load the needed kernel modules, so I hope you use a standard Debian kernel. Alsa uses kernel modules (kernel space) and tools in the user space. This can be confusing.

$su -
$alsamixer
Configure bars with arrows, enable or disable service with "m" key.
When done ESC
#alsactl store
P.S. If you have 5.1 speaker system, be sure that LFE channels bars are all way down and [off]. LFE channel is to generate 5.1 emulation matrix on 4 speaker systems.
;)

Solved!
 

I made a couple of changes at once, so I don't know which was the fix. I upgraded to the 2.8 kernel and switched over to alsa. Sound works now. Thanks to everyone who offered advice!

'alsaconf' what was made me change from Oss to Alsa some time around kernel 2.4.12 or something.

Re: Solved!
 

There is a 2.8 kernel out or was this just a typo? I imagine it was just the latter. Not trying to be a jerk just wondering if I missed out on something big :)

Sorry. One of the disadvantages of time travel. When I go back and forth, I can't keep up with which version is which time..... :)

No. I screwed up. Sorry.