yes another sound problem, seems like a lot of people have them, heh...ok here's the scenario.

i have sarge installed on my inspiron 5100 laptop, running the 2.6.7 kernel. installed KDE, sound worked fine in there and everything. but i wanted to recompile my kernel, so i went through it all, took a lot of stuff out, etc etc...i went with the alsa configurations in the sound config part and didn't install any OSS modules or anything.

now sound doesn't work in KDE (perhaps in the whole system, i'm not sure how to check that).

lsmod shows the following sound related modules running

the intel8x0 is the right driver (was using that one before i redid the kernel, i checked on that) and the ac97 is the right codec and all...i don't really know about the other stuff, i didn't want to turn everything off in case i needed some of it (if there's something in there you think i can safely remove, i'd appreciate the advice)

sooo, hrm...where can i go from here? do i need to reconfigure KDE or X to get the sound working? (btw, yes i turned up the volume in the mixer...it was turned all the way down as usual with alsa when i started up KDE after recompiling) did i not put in everything i needed when i was recompiling? i also ran KDE as root to make sure it was a permissions thing

also when i go to the sound systeml in KDE, and try to choose a device, and go to alsa, it says it has an error initializing the driver, device: default cannot be opened for playback, file or directory can't be found, and will go back to using the null output device. before it was usually on autodetect and worked

anyone have any suggestions?

have you installed aumix? for the volume?

actually that's what i'm thinking...that i need to install the alsa utilities...if i try to run alsaconf it says command not found...so maybe that's the issue

problem is i don't have my laptop hooked up to the internet right now (no modem driver and no ethernet compatible connection at the moment)

should i just try to wait till i have access and do it through apt-get, or try to download the packages on another computer, transfer them over, and install?

did you install the oss emulation? its reccomended

i compiled 2.6.4 on dell inspiron 5100 using alsa. i compiled all teh alsa options, including teh soundcard driver, directly into the kernel. i did compile teh oss emulation. you should check your logs to see if alsa is starting. if you want to install the alsa from source, i remember there is a script that you must run(forgot the name but its in teh soucre top directory for the device drivers) which is not specifically laid out in the INSTALL instructions. the script will create the neccessary devices in /dev. teh alsa source comes in 4 packages i think. driver, libraries, tools, and utilities. maybe check you /etc/rc.d/ directory for rc.alsa., make sure it has correct perms.

once you are sure alsa is installed and starting you can run "alsamixer". this is a command-line mixer. everything starts out muted so you must unmute them. (press m ). once you get your volume right you can store the settings useing "alsactl store " reading teh man page is helpful.

here are some pages with good setup instructions for this laptop.

http://somewhere.fscked.org/laptop/

also i have read that this laptop has an overheating problem, which requires compessed air to be blown through the rear vent to keep the dust off the heat sink. if you ever observe any instability you may want to check you temperature. this may be the cause.

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportfor...sage.id=146324


hope this helps