I just installed fedora core 4 on an old system that was running redhat 7.3. Sound seemed to work fine on the old system (able to play mp3s via xmms). It's a older system, AMD 1100Mhz from the year 2000, with on-board sound.

When I run system-config-soundcard, i get the following:
(2 tabs at the top say 'Creative')
It seems to give me the choice of 2 modules:
nb558 or snd-sbawe
and 2 'primary sound devices'
SB16 PnP - CLT0041 and SB16 PnP - CLT7002

Attempting to choose any of these variations yields:
/usr/share/system-config-soundcard/soundcard.py:153: DeprecationWarning: use gtk.ComboBox
self.primaryDeviceOptionMenu = gtk.OptionMenu()
amixer: Mixer attach hw:0 error: No such file or directory
amixer: Mixer attach hw:0 error: No such file or directory
amixer: Mixer attach hw:0 error: No such file or directory
amixer: Mixer attach hw:0 error: No such file or directory
aplay: main:508: audio open error: No such file or directory

when i click the 'Play Test Sound' button (and no sound is heard...)

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Here's some relevant(perhaps) info:

lsmod:

Module Size Used by
snd_opl3_synth 18373 0
snd_seq_instr 12609 1 snd_opl3_synth
snd_seq_midi_emul 6849 1 snd_opl3_synth
snd_ainstr_fm 2369 1 snd_opl3_synth
parport_pc 28933 1
lp 13001 0
parport 40585 2 parport_pc,lp
autofs4 29253 2
rfcomm 42333 0
l2cap 30661 5 rfcomm
bluetooth 56133 4 rfcomm,l2cap
sunrpc 167813 1
ipt_REJECT 5569 1
ipt_state 1857 2
ip_conntrack 41497 1 ipt_state
iptable_filter 2881 1
ip_tables 19521 3 ipt_REJECT,ipt_state,iptable_filter
md5 4033 1
ipv6 268097 8
ohci_hcd 26849 0
i2c_amd756 6341 0
i2c_core 21569 1 i2c_amd756
ns558 5445 0
gameport 18633 2 ns558
snd_opl3_lib 12353 1 snd_opl3_synth
snd_sb16_dsp 17345 0
snd_seq_dummy 3653 0
snd_seq_oss 37057 0
snd_seq_midi_event 9153 1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq 62289 8 snd_opl3_synth,snd_seq_instr,snd_seq_midi_emul,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_e vent
snd_pcm_oss 51185 0
snd_mixer_oss 17857 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 100169 2 snd_sb16_dsp,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer 33605 3 snd_opl3_lib,snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc 9669 1 snd_pcm
snd_sb16_csp 25025 0
snd_sb_common 20673 2 snd_sb16_dsp,snd_sb16_csp
snd_hwdep 9057 2 snd_opl3_lib,snd_sb16_csp
snd_mpu401_uart 10049 0
snd_rawmidi 30305 1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device 8781 6 snd_opl3_synth,snd_opl3_lib,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
snd 57157 15 snd_opl3_synth,snd_opl3_lib,snd_sb16_dsp,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss ,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_sb16_csp,snd_sb_common,snd_hwdep,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
soundcore 10913 1 snd
e100 47297 0
mii 5441 1 e100
floppy 65269 0
dm_snapshot 17413 0
dm_zero 2113 0
dm_mirror 26029 0
ext3 132553 3
jbd 86233 1 ext3
dm_mod 58101 6 dm_snapshot,dm_zero,dm_mirror


lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-751 [Irongate] System Controller (rev 25)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-751 [Irongate] AGP Bridge (rev 01)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-756 [Viper] ISA (rev 01)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-756 [Viper] IDE (rev 07)
00:07.3 Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-756 [Viper] ACPI (rev 03)
00:07.4 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-756 [Viper] USB (rev 06)
00:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82557/8/9 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 08)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage 128 RL/VR AGP

well i guess that mach is ancient in fed4's eyes.. so maybe install the old driver for your card.

good luck.

RH 7.3 ouch that's old!

Move up a notch to an Audigy 2 model. There's no sound yet on the Core 4 installation with the Audigy 4 Pro model since only NT cored
OSes will see it run. Fedora sees it as an Audigy 2 for some reason. Gee maybe Core 5 will run the Audigy 4 Pro here.

find the newest drivers for the sound card and install them, then run your setup again.

alsaconf is a good sound card configuration program also, and if alsa is ALL installed, it may even have the driver with it.

keep us informed.

Opened case, found its not an onboard sound, but rather and ISA/EISA card.

Following markings on the card:
"CT4520" (on a sticker)
"CT8920-NBQ" (on a large chip)
"Creative Labs" (on a sticker)

ok so some googling reveals this to be an ISA version of the "Soundblaster AWE64 VALUE"

more to follow.

[root@blah]# rpm -e alsa-utils system-sound-config firstboot

download source for latest alsa-driver / alsa-utils / alsa-lib

build/configure according to instructions for this card at the alsa site (cant post link yet... oh well)

Everythings good up until:
[root@blah]# [root@blah]# modprobe snd-sbawe;modprobe snd-pcm-oss;modprobe snd-mixer-oss;modprobe snd-seq-oss
FATAL: Error inserting snd_sbawe (/lib/modules/2.6.15-1.1831_FC4/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sbawe.ko): No such device


Well I don't expect anything to work after this anyhow but I try to plow forward
[root@blah]# [root@blah]# alsaconf

And it detects the sound card ok as a "sbawe" but then,

Loading driver...
Starting sound driver: snd-sbawe FATAL: Error inserting snd_sbawe (/lib/modules/2.6.15-1.1831_FC4/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sbawe.ko): No such device
done
Starting sound driver: snd-sbawe FATAL: Error inserting snd_sbawe (/lib/modules/2.6.15-1.1831_FC4/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sbawe.ko): No such device
done
Starting sound driver: snd-sbawe FATAL: Error inserting snd_sbawe (/lib/modules/2.6.15-1.1831_FC4/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sbawe.ko): No such device
done
/usr/sbin/alsactl: load_state:1236: No soundcards found...
Setting default volumes...

I can get some sound to work if I comment out a few lines in this file in the alsa-driver package and recompile/install

file:
./alsa-driver/alsa-kernel/isa/sb/sb16.c

code:
snd_printk(KERN_ERR PFX "fatal error - EMU-8000 synthesizer not detected at 0x%lx\n", awe_port[dev]);
goto _err;



sounds work just fine inside of the kde control center/sounds+multimedia/system notifications and inside of the kconsole window... all seems just fine.

However!! (argh)

Inside of xmms I run into a few problems. I do get sound (from everything I've tried actually) [though sometimes I have to kill the arstd process]. I run into what looks like a fairly ugly problem when I click the stop button or the song ends. Nearly the same error happens if I run the 'speaker-check' tool (again I hear the sound)

errors from /var/log/messages

localhost kernel: Bad page state at free_hot_cold_page (in process 'xmms', page c1001020)
localhost kernel: flags:0x00000414 mapping:00000000 mapcount:0 count:0 (Not tainted)
localhost kernel: Backtrace:
localhost kernel: [<c0141598>] bad_page+0x8c/0xc3 [<c0141e3f>] free_hot_cold_page+0x3a/0x117
localhost kernel: [<c01472f5>] __page_cache_release+0x4e/0xb7 [<c014b4d2>] zap_pte_range+0x117/0x25a
localhost kernel: [<c014b6fb>] unmap_page_range+0xe6/0x110 [<c014b7f7>] unmap_vmas+0xd2/0x1f1
localhost kernel: [<c014fa41>] unmap_region+0x7d/0xe6 [<c014fd17>] do_munmap+0xb9/0xf4
localhost kernel: [<c014fd9d>] sys_munmap+0x4b/0x63 [<c0102e75>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
localhost kernel: Trying to fix it up, but a reboot is needed
localhost kernel: Bad page state at free_hot_cold_page (in process 'xmms', page c1001040)
localhost kernel: flags:0x00000414 mapping:00000000 mapcount:0 count:0 (Tainted: G B)
localhost kernel: Backtrace:
localhost kernel: [<c0141598>] bad_page+0x8c/0xc3 [<c0141e3f>] free_hot_cold_page+0x3a/0x117
localhost kernel: [<c01472f5>] __page_cache_release+0x4e/0xb7 [<c014b4d2>] zap_pte_range+0x117/0x25a
localhost kernel: [<c014b6fb>] unmap_page_range+0xe6/0x110 [<c014b7f7>] unmap_vmas+0xd2/0x1f1
localhost kernel: [<c014fa41>] unmap_region+0x7d/0xe6 [<c014fd17>] do_munmap+0xb9/0xf4
localhost kernel: [<c014fd9d>] sys_munmap+0x4b/0x63 [<c0102e75>] syscall_call+0x7/0xb
localhost kernel: Trying to fix it up, but a reboot is needed
localhost kernel: Bad page state at free_hot_cold_page (in process 'xmms', page c1001060)
localhost kernel: flags:0x00000414 mapping:00000000 mapcount:0 count:0 (Tainted: G B)



So... there we are, I've got system sounds ok... no errors/issues there inside of kde control center or the little beeps and things inside of the kterminal application. However, i get errors like the above inside of xmms or spearker-check.


I guess I'll poke around a bit more, perhaps there is some arcane magic strings I need to put inside of /etc/modprobe.conf. Baring that I guess I'll write something up in the alsa bugzilla.

Cheers,
Chris