sound works in root - no sound in user

seanb · 02-27-2004, 01:27 PM

I installed Debian... after a few fits and starts it works great except for the sound. I can listen to MP3s in the WIndows partition without a problem - as root. When I operate as a user, there is no sound (except for the occasional beep) and I cant play music. I have apt-get removed alsa and then reinstalled it. I have been searching for an answer and cant find one. Help?

I operate the dual-boot, Dell Inspiron 5000 laptop
Debian Unstable (SID)
ESS soundcard

DEMSG says the following:
maestro: Configuring ESS Maestro 2E found at IO 0x1400 IRQ 5
maestro: subvendor id: 0x009f1028
maestro: PCI power management capability: 0x7622
maestro: AC97 Codec detected: v: 0x83847609 caps: 0x6940 pwr: 0xf
maestro: 1 channels configured.
maestro: version 0.15 time 10:28:46 Apr 14 2002

lsmod says the following:
maestro 27456 4
soundcore 3204 3 [maestro]

lscpi says the following:
pcilib: Cannot open /proc/bus/pci/02/00.0
pcilib: Cannot open /proc/bus/pci/02/00.1
lspci: Unable to read 64 bytes of configuration space.

alsamixer returns the following error:
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device

alsactl
alsactl: save_state:1061: No soundcards found...

When I try to play xmms - the thing hangs as a user, works fine as root
When I go to Desktop Preferences-Sound everything looks fine
When I open volume control, nothing is muted, everything is "locked"

thanks guys

MasterC · 02-27-2004, 01:31 PM

Check your /etc/group file. Debian likely has included a group "sound" or something along the lines. In addition, it may have chown'd the /dev/dsp to this group, and given the proper permissions (as this tends to be the accepted way of securely doing things of this nature) to this group. You will then simply need to add your user(s) to this group to enable them to listen to music/sounds.

Cool

MasterC · 02-27-2004, 01:31 PM

And of course

Moving to Debian Forum

So they can tell you for sure

Cool

Strike · 02-27-2004, 04:04 PM

You need to add yourself to the audio group. The permissions on the sound devices should already be set. Resist the temptation to chmod 666 anything in spite of the ill-informed advice you may get from some others.

seanb · 02-27-2004, 04:45 PM

Thanks MasterC and Strike

I would have thrown this into Debian forum, except I thought it was more of an newbie thing than a distro issue. Sorry MasterC.

Been warned of chmod before, thanks Strike. After reading your posts:
I vi'ed /etc/group

and saw the following (:
cdrom:x:24:
floppy:x:25:
tape:x:26:
sudo:x:27:
audio:x:29:

root is:
root:x:0:

user is:
seanb:x:1000:

When I had Red Hat, there was a user management screen for prmissions and stuff, and I am still learning Debian... so....

Any suggestion on how I should edit this?

(diving into Debian forum now...)

thanks again guys.

Strike · 02-27-2004, 05:59 PM

Don't hand-edit files when you can just do addgroup username audio

(note, if you don't have addgroup, install the adduser package, which you should have installed anyway)

liquigel · 02-27-2004, 06:04 PM

Code:

adduser your_username audio

also works.

HappyTux · 02-27-2004, 06:04 PM

You should adduser seanb audio as root then logout and back in for the change to take effect. If you still have problems before you start xmms to play a song try lsof /dev/dsp to see if anything has the sound in use already most likely it will be the artsd. Then make sure that you have the xmms-arts plugin installed and in use in the output plugins in the xmms preferences. You are not using alsa at the moment the module loaded tells you that you are using the oss sound through the arts sound server at least that is what KDE defaults too if you are using that not sure about gnome I never use it. In order to use alsa you have to either upgrade to a 2.6 kernel or get the proper drivers built for your running kernel for a 2.4 series.

seanb · 02-28-2004, 12:46 AM

i dont know what I did. Now sound doesnt work in either root or user.

Debian unstable (SID) on dual boot Dell Inspiron 5000, ESS soundcard

alsamixer:
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device

# lscpi
bash: lscpi: command not found

lsmod unchanged from above

dmesg
unchanged

lsof /dev/dsp
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
esd 739 seanb 5w CHR 14,3 247318 /dev/dsp0

/etc/group shows username is listed for sound

modinfo soundcore
filename: /lib/modules/2.4.18-bf2.4/kernel/drivers/sound/soundcore.odescription: "Core sound module"
author: "Alan Cox"
license: "GPL"

So what are my options... apt-get remove alsa? then apt-get install alsa? When I installed debian I selected the ESS driver (soundcard) during setup.

thanks again guys...

HappyTux · 02-28-2004, 01:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by seanb
i dont know what I did. Now sound doesnt work in either root or user.

Debian unstable (SID) on dual boot Dell Inspiron 5000, ESS soundcard

alsamixer:
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device

As I have already told you you are not using alsa the modules for it have a snd prefix like this.

Code:

>$ lsmod Module Size Used by snd_pcm_oss 48580 0 snd_mixer_oss 15936 2 snd_pcm_oss nvidia 2070376 12 apm 15268 2 snd_emu10k1 63172 1 snd_rawmidi 19648 1 snd_emu10k1 snd_pcm 83520 2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_emu10k1 snd_timer 20928 1 snd_pcm snd_seq_device 6596 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi snd_ac97_codec 54724 1 snd_emu10k1 snd_page_alloc 9540 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm snd_util_mem 3456 1 snd_emu10k1 snd_hwdep 7296 1 snd_emu10k1 snd 46468 10 snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_seq_device,snd_ac97_codec,snd_util_mem,snd_hwdep uhci_hcd 28616 0 ohci_hcd 15936 0 ehci_hcd 21888 0 evdev 8256 0 via686a 17028 0 i2c_sensor 2496 1 via686a i2c_isa 1984 0 i2c_core 18304 3 via686a,i2c_sensor,i2c_isa nls_iso8859_15 4608 0 sidewinder 10496 0 emu10k1_gp 2496 0 joydev 9152 0 gameport 3840 2 sidewinder,emu10k1_gp sound 75496 0 soundcore 7584 3 snd,sound parport_pc 25740 1 lp 8964 0 parport 36864 2 parport_pc,lp tulip 38368 0 crc32 4096 1 tulip

Quote:

# lscpi
bash: lscpi: command not found

You need the pciutils package installed to do that.

Code:

>$ dpkg -S lspci pciutils: /usr/bin/lspci pciutils: /usr/share/man/man8/lspci.8.gz pciutils: /bin/lspci

Quote:

lsof /dev/dsp
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
esd 739 seanb 5w CHR 14,3 247318 /dev/dsp0

This show that you or an application you have started is using the /dev/dsp from the looks of it I am guessing enlightment sound daemon (esd) which IIRC is used by Gnome for sound. Are you using Gnome for the desktop? You should try to kill 739 or if the PID has changed then that new number and start a sound application again and see if there is an output plugin for using that sound daemon although I am not too sure of this never use Gnome.

Quote:

modinfo soundcore
filename: /lib/modules/2.4.18-bf2.4/kernel/drivers/sound/soundcore.odescription: "Core sound module"
author: "Alan Cox"
license: "GPL"

This is not a good sign you are still running the install kernel and there have been several security warnings about vulnerabilites in this kernel.

Quote:

So what are my options... apt-get remove alsa? then apt-get install alsa? When I installed debian I selected the ESS driver (soundcard) during setup.

thanks again guys...

You should upgrade to a new kernel you can still use a 2.4.18 kernel if you wish Debian kernels are patched when new exploits are found and the version number suffix is bumped up so apt will tell you to upgrade the kernel you now have installed. While you are at it get the proper alsa modules that can be installed at the same time for said new kernel if you install a 2.4 series, if a 2.6 there is no need for the alsa modules just the alsa-base and alsa-utils packages these same packages are needed for a 2.4 as well along with the already mentioned alsa kernel module package.