Sorry for the long post but I tried to provide as much info as I can so that
it would be easier for somebody to help.

I am tryin to Switch from OSS to ALSA but with no luck till now.
I am running Debian sarge with kernel 2.6.6, KDE 3.2.2 (toshiba satellite).

At the beginning I tried just choosing ALSA sound system from the
Sound & MultiMedia Options in the KDE but I got the error (the driver
was not found).
I installed using apt-get alsa-base and alsautils.

when running the command "alsamixer" I get the following:
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device or address.

running "/etc/init.d/alsa start" I got:
Restoring ALSA mixer settings ... failed:
You may want to run 'alsactl restore' manually to view any errors.

running "alsactl restore" I got:
alsactl: load_state:1134: No soundcards found...

when running alsaconf I get something like it couldnt find my soundcard.....etc.

Here is the result of "lsmod":
--------------------------------------
Module Size Used by
ds 18500 4
sd_mod 21600 0
sg 38880 0
ipv6 254624 8
af_packet 22376 2
tulip 47040 0
crc32 4320 1 tulip
yenta_socket 21376 1
pcmcia_core 67620 2 ds,yenta_socket
tsdev 7328 0
mousedev 10068 3
joydev 9888 0
usbmouse 5664 0
usbhid 32768 0
ohci_hcd 19780 0
usbcore 108060 5 usbmouse,usbhid,ohci_hcd
pci_hotplug 36400 0
ali_agp 7008 1
agpgart 34152 1 ali_agp
evdev 9536 0
sr_mod 17732 0
cdrom 40384 1 sr_mod
ide_scsi 17316 1
scsi_mod 122252 4 sd_mod,sg,sr_mod,ide_scsi
parport_pc 35008 1
lp 11204 0
parport 41832 2 parport_pc,lp
nls_cp437 5696 1
ntfs 93484 1
dm_mod 45376 0
capability 4100 0
commoncap 7200 1 capability
emu10k1 83972 0
sound 84204 1 emu10k1
i2c_ali15x3 7432 0
adm1021 12424 0
eeprom 7688 0
lm90 11236 0
i2c_ali1535 7012 0
i2c_dev 10336 0
i2c_sensor 2880 3 adm1021,eeprom,lm90
i2c_core 23556 7 i2c_ali15x3,adm1021,eeprom,lm90,i2c_ali1535,i2c_dev,i2c_sensor
ali5455 38240 0
thermal 12560 0
toshiba_acpi 6012 0
processor 17264 1 thermal
fan 3980 0
button 6488 0
battery 9356 0
ac 4812 0
trident 40436 1
soundcore 10336 5 emu10k1,sound,ali5455,trident
gameport 4704 1 trident
ac97_codec 18956 3 emu10k1,ali5455,trident
rtc 12760 0
ext3 126184 1
jbd 62008 1 ext3
mbcache 9348 1 ext3
ide_disk 19872 4
ide_generic 1408 0
alim15x3 12524 1
ide_core 149696 4 ide_scsi,ide_disk,ide_generic,alim15x3
unix 28560 336
fbcon 30340 71
font 8320 1 fbcon
vesafb 5972 1
cfbcopyarea 3840 1 vesafb
cfbimgblt 3040 1 vesafb
cfbfillrect 3776 1 vesafb

And here is the contents of /etc/modules:
-----------------------------------------------------
#af_packet
#slhc
#parport
#sound
#i82092
#yenta_socket
#apm
#isa-pnp
#ac97_codec
trident
ac
battery
button
fan
processor
toshiba_acpi
thermal
snd-ali5451
snd-hwdep
snd-rtctimer
snd-rawmidi
snd-pcm-oss
ali5455
i2c-sensor
i2c-dev

# I2C adapter drivers
i2c-ali1535
# I2C chip drivers
lm90
eeprom

adm1021
i2c-ali15x3
emu10k1
#end of file

Output of "ls -L -l /dev/dsp* "
--------------------------------------
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 3 Jun 22 02:50 /dev/dsp
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 3 Jun 22 02:50 /dev/dsp0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 19 Jun 22 02:50 /dev/dsp1
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 35 Jun 22 02:50 /dev/dsp2
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 51 Jun 22 02:50 /dev/dsp3

contents of /etc/modules.conf
-------------------------------------
### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/0keep

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/actions
# Special actions that are needed for some modules

# The BTTV module does not load the tuner module automatically,
# so do that in here
post-install bttv insmod tuner
post-remove bttv rmmod tuner


### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/actions

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/aliases
# Aliases to tell insmod/modprobe which modules to use

# Uncomment the network protocols you don't want loaded:
# alias net-pf-1 off # Unix
# alias net-pf-2 off # IPv4
# alias net-pf-3 off # Amateur Radio AX.25
# alias net-pf-4 off # IPX
# alias net-pf-5 off # DDP / appletalk
# alias net-pf-6 off # Amateur Radio NET/ROM
# alias net-pf-9 off # X.25
# alias net-pf-10 off # IPv6
# alias net-pf-11 off # ROSE / Amateur Radio X.25 PLP
# alias net-pf-19 off # Acorn Econet

alias char-major-10-175 agpgart
alias char-major-10-200 tun
alias char-major-81 bttv
alias char-major-108 ppp_generic
alias /dev/ppp ppp_generic
alias tty-ldisc-3 ppp_async
alias tty-ldisc-14 ppp_synctty
alias ppp-compress-21 bsd_comp
alias ppp-compress-24 ppp_deflate
alias ppp-compress-26 ppp_deflate

# Crypto modules (see http://www.kerneli.org/)
alias loop-xfer-gen-0 loop_gen
alias loop-xfer-3 loop_fish2
alias loop-xfer-gen-10 loop_gen
alias cipher-2 des
alias cipher-3 fish2
alias cipher-4 blowfish
alias cipher-6 idea
alias cipher-7 serp6f
alias cipher-8 mars6
alias cipher-11 rc62
alias cipher-15 dfc2
alias cipher-16 rijndael
alias cipher-17 rc5

# I2C module options
alias char-major-89 i2c-dev


### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/aliases

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/alsa-base
above snd-pcm snd-pcm-oss

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/alsa-base

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/apm
alias char-major-10-134 apm
alias /dev/apm_bios /dev/misc/apm_bios
alias /dev/misc/apm_bios apm

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/apm

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/i2c
alias char-major-89 i2c-dev

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/i2c

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/paths
# This file contains a list of paths that modprobe should scan,
# beside the ones that are compiled into the modutils tools
# themselves.


### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/paths

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/ppp
alias /dev/ppp ppp_generic
alias char-major-108 ppp_generic
alias tty-ldisc-3 ppp_async
alias tty-ldisc-14 ppp_synctty
alias ppp-compress-21 bsd_comp
alias ppp-compress-24 ppp_deflate
alias ppp-compress-26 ppp_deflate

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/ppp

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/setserial
#
# This is what I wanted to do, but logger is in /usr/bin, which isn't loaded
# when the module is first loaded into the kernel at boot time!
#
#post-install serial /etc/init.d/setserial start | logger -p daemon.info -t "setserial-module reload"
#pre-remove serial /etc/init.d/setserial stop | logger -p daemon.info -t "setserial-module uload"
#
alias /dev/tts serial
alias /dev/tts/0 serial
alias /dev/tts/1 serial
alias /dev/tts/2 serial
alias /dev/tts/3 serial
post-install serial /etc/init.d/setserial modload > /dev/null 2> /dev/null
pre-remove serial /etc/init.d/setserial modsave > /dev/null 2> /dev/null

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/setserial

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/toshutils
alias char-major-10-181 toshiba

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/toshutils

### update-modules: start processing /etc/modutils/arch/i386
alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc
alias char-major-10-144 nvram
alias binfmt-0064 binfmt_aout
alias char-major-10-135 rtc

### update-modules: end processing /etc/modutils/arch/i386


Any help would be highly appreciated,
Thanx in advance........

As I compare your info to mine, I see a couple things that are different. I'm not really sure how all the module files interact so...... I'll just tell you how mine is different and how I got ALSA to work.

1) My /etc/modutils/alsa-base looks like yours but I also have /etc/modutils/alsa which contains:
# Example Configuration of ALSA 0.9 for Debian GNU/Linux

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

options snd snd_major=116 snd_cards_limit=1 \
snd_device_mode=0660 snd_device_gid=29 snd_device_uid=0

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 snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
#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

For reference, "snd-intel8x0" is the name of the ALSA sound module for my card. After running update-modules this info is placed in modules.conf --- so mine looks different from yours in that I don't see similar stuff in yours.

2) My /etc/modules file is much shorter than yours. My lsmod output looks similar to yours so it appears modules are being loaded.... but they aren't in /etc/modules. This is a mystery to me. Like I said, I don't really understand how all these files interact.

3) I was getting the same error messages you are. My brother and I finally figured out that our problem was that the OSS modules were still loading and they were "taking control" of the sound card and ALSA couldn't "find" the card. Our solution was to move the OSS modules...... so they could not be found...... so they would not load. I simply moved my /lib/modules/2.6.6-1-k7/kernel/sound/OSS directory to /home and rebooted and ALSA works.

I would assume that keeping the OSS modules from loading is something that can be taken care of in a more 'graceful' manner. I'm hoping to figure it out sometime.

I hope this helps.
k0n

Thanks 4 ur reply. I tried ur work around by renaming and moving the oss directory but it didnt work.
The strange thing is that my /etc/modutils/alsa-base contains only this line:

above snd-pcm snd-pcm-oss

I dont have that file /etc/modutils/alsa that u displayed its contents !!!

any thoughts?

Sorry..... I forgot..... I made that file. I copied the info from some online ALSA instructions and then changed a couple lines.

Try creating the file /etc/modutils/alsa and then cut/paste my info into it and change the line
'alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0'
so that it has the name of your ALSA module instead of 'snd-intel8x0' then run update-modules. That should put this info into your modules.conf file.

oh.... and my /etc/modutils/alsa-base says the same thing yours does.

I have done what u proposed by creatin that alsa file then update-modules and running alsaconf. but still alsaconf fails in detecting my sound card.
I feel like I am specifiyin the wrong module.....I thought it was snd-ali5451. Do u knw
how can I know which soundcard I am using? (I am new to linux as u see).

thanx for ur help.

http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/
This link should help you figure out which driver is the right one for your card. If you have onboard sound you'll probably want to check with the mobo manufacturer. There will probably be some instructions for your driver but they probably won't be debian-specific.

http://www.linuxorbit.com/modules.ph...tid=541&page=1
This is the other set of online instructions I was looking at. Some of it is a bit dated so it's a little bit confusing. Your 2.6.6 kernel should have the alsa modules in it already so you should be able to skip all the way down to the 'setting up' part.

I didn't follow either set of instructions exactly. I sort of merged the two together and tried to make some sense out of it.

Hopefully these will help you out.