I am currently running Mandrake 9.1 and when I booted it this morning I noticed a little problem. When it boots into KDE there is normally a little sound clip that plays, but it doesn't anymore. The sound is also missing when I log off.

At first, I thought I the sound was completely AWOL but I decided to try XMMS and my music began playing as it normally does. I also have sound with all other applications I use.

I know this is not a big problem, but I like the clip that is played when my machine boots into KDE. HMMM, maybe I need to get out more.

Anyway, does anyone know how I can get it back?

Your soundserver must have gotten set to not start up. In the control center, find the tab for sound that talks about the sond server, make sure it is checked to start up when you start KDE.

Personally, I dont like the soundserver. Seems to crash a lot. Reminds me of those damn windows themes too, with the "bleeblop" for maximize, and "bloo-doop" for minimize. Those noises annoyed the crap outta me.

*edit* I'd give ya better, more precise directions, but I use Gnome.

try gnome and forget about the sound.

Thanks for the info. I will take a look when I get home tonight. Just to clarify, are you talking about checking in the "services" to see what is starting up when the machine boots, or will I need to be looking somewhere else? Also, if the sound server is not starting at boot, why do I still have sound with xmms, mplayer, etc? Please bear with me if I'm asking NOOB questions. I have just recently defected to Linux and I'm still trying to learn as much as I can and put it all together one piece at a time.

I know what you mean about the windows themes. I hate those noises also, but with Mandrake the only sounds I get besides those that I make are at start up and shutdown.

Sorry utopicdog. I must have been typing when you posted.

I have tried gnome, but I just didn't like it as well as KDE. I really don't have a good reason why except that KDE just seems to suit me better. Guess it's just a personal preference thing.

Ok, here's what I've figured out in my time with Linux. Admittedly, I've not been on Linux forever and I am no guru, this is just what I've been able to tell with trial and error experimentation.

The sound server is basically just a program that watches for events that happen on your desktop, events like minimize, maximize, and such. When the program detects that you've done one of these things, it plays a given sound file.

The reason why soundserver is not working but you can still hear music et al is because the sound driver module is loaded, thus sound works, but the soundserver is not loaded, so you dont get those minimize/maximize/login/logout sounds.

I beleive (this is from memory, I am not a KDE user most of the time) that you're not going to be looking for services, because the soundserver is not a service. It'll be listed under the control panel somewhere or other. Click the K (start button), click Control Center, then surf around and find it on there somewhere.


I'd like to note in this message that I would really enjoy it if a trusted guru of this site would review my post here and tell me if I am correct on my guesses with just what soundserver is. I like to tinker and experiment and find these things out, so please let me know if I am on the right track.

Your explanation does make sense. I guess I'm just accustomed to windows. Either the sound works or doesn't with windows. That's why I was confused about why the sound would work in some situations and not in others with Linux.

Like I said the sound that is made when the machine boots is not that important to me. However, if something on my system stops working, no matter how trivial, I would like to understand why. I figure it will help me learn to truly understand Linux and learn to have complete control over my system rather than the other way around.

yeah, that same thing happens to me and i was curious to know what was going on, though i didn't care enough to do anything about it

Regarding this post, you should really try to give a more comprehensive/constructive post instead of telling a member to just use another WM and or just forget about sound in general. Your post does not help the user in any way, if you can't answer the question or suggest an alternative in a different manner, you should just skip the question/thread and move on to the next one.

Regards.

Interesting how Linux works in other machines while others just give users so much problems. In terms of the sound server working on the machines I have installed, one works with sound and the other does not. Here are my current specs and distro types used.

Linux Mandrake 9.1(BamBoo)
Dell Latitude Laptop Pentium II CPi A366XT
sound works
Specs:
http://www.radcyberzine.com/linux/linux-dell.html

LInux RedHat 8.0 (Pysche)
Packard Bell AMD-K6 400Mhz
sound does not work
Specs:
http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=179

Sorry I don't have the kernel versions of both distros, but I am bound to visit this thread often to post technical specs about the sound server. Both distro can boot in either the KDE or GNOME environment. We can look at either the sound server isn't configured correct for an unsupport sound card / driver or the kernal does not recognize imbedded sounds cards. The Packard Bell has an embedded sound card. Not sure of the Dell laptop, but the site link provided might give you some cluese about the sound type.

Hope this information helps someone...oh, I just remembered I listed the kernel versions on the distro type I have (the information to the left of post, neato ).