2.6.7 kernel and sound troubles
 

A question which is asked everywhere but not solid answer found...
I have nforce3 platform with inbuilt realtek codec which should be ac97 compatible.

My kernel is custom build and runs under Red Hat linux 9. As RH9 came with 2.4.x kernel, those old configuration tools like sndconfig doesn't work because kernel modules end with .ko instead of .o.

When I run X, I usually use Gnome desktop. In Gnome I select system setting and from that menu list I select soundcard detection.

Soundcard detection application in its audio devices panel gives me this
The following audio device was detected
Vendor:nVidia Corporation
Model: AC97 Audio Controller
Module:i810_audio

Then I push the play test sound button which gives following message
The i810_audio driver could not be loaded. This soundcard may not be compatible with Red Hat Linux

Push the OK button and after a while hear test sound.
Then I will push OK button on audio devices panel
I once get that

The i810_audio driver could not be loaded. This soundcard may not be compatible with Red Hat Linux

notification. Push OK again and panel closes. I can play ut2003 and hear sounds. Crackling sound in some situations but minor issues IMO in ut2003.

Media player an other hand locks up. and doesn't paly anything. It worked fine before kernel and platform upgrade. How I can make it to work with this 2.6.7 kernel and with this new platform ?

I don't know Fedora, but do you have module-init-tools installed? These are required to load modules in a 2.6.x kernel. The 2.4.x tools won't (or shouldn't) work.

Also, are you using OSS or ALSA for sound?

It may be worth compiling the most recent version of ALSA (driver, lib and utils) - as long as the tools that come with Fedora and require sound can use ALSA (this shouldn't be too much of a problem if you use the esound daemon or similar - jackd or ArtS - and it has been compiled to use ALSA). Judging by the information you have given you would only need to compile the intel8x0 driver from alsa-drivers.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Media player" so I'll assume you're talking about XMMS. Anyway, with XMMS, go into Options then Preferences, then change the output plugin if needed. When I had 2.6.7 (on fedora core 1, i switched back to 2.4.22 due to some software issues though) I had to use "OSS Driver" but with 2.4.22 I use "eSound Output Plugin". I probably have the same audio chip as you, I have an ASUS P4P800-Deluxe with the Intel 865PE chipset, it uses the AC97 SoundMAX, and my module is also i810_audio. This was quite a bitch to set up though, almost made me swap in the good 'ol soundblaster live (EMU101K) card lol!

Thanks SpeedFreak. That helped. And yes I was talking about XMMS player. In application panel heding it says media player but in taskbar ( or whatever it is called in Gnome ) it says XMMS.

Anyway changed my previous output plugin aRTS driver o.4 to OSS driver 1.2.7 and it worked.

I think I am using ALSA. Atleast I compiled ALSA modules when compiling my kernel.

I have module-init-tools installed.

modprobe --version
module-init-tools version 0.9.14

Problem is that some of those other tools like sndconfig try to use older tools or older scripts and try to load modules in 2.4.x kernel way which doesn't work.

Anyway there are now 2 minor problems left. My snd modules doesn't load automatically and because I have all that I could compiled as modules I have to make lots of insmod commands to get sound working. Will these modules load automatically in boot time if I edit /etc/modprobe.conf file or is there a correct way to do this?

Second problem is that annoying soundcard detection application message which obviously isn't true anymore. Should I edit a certain script somewhere or what? Atleast I shouldn't need to recompile my kernel or install any ALSA utilities if sound works, right?

Thanks for your time.

.

Could you run the following commands and display the results here:

# lsmod

and

# find /lib/modules -name "*intel*"

Gives this

Module Size Used by
snd_intel8x0 23752 0
snd_ac97_codec 66820 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_mpu401_uart 6208 1 snd_intel8x0
snd_rawmidi 20320 1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device 6468 1 snd_rawmidi
snd_pcm_oss 49096 0
snd_pcm 85952 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm_oss
snd_page_alloc 8968 2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
snd_timer 21440 1 snd_pcm
snd_mixer_oss 17472 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd 47684 9 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_
rawmidi,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mixer_oss
soundcore 7328 1 snd
fglrx 212996 7
ohci_hcd 31552 0
usbhid 30208 0
amd64_agp 6728 1
agpgart 27912 2 amd64_agp
md5 3520 1
ipv6 234432 8
ohci1394 30016 0
ieee1394 93068 1 ohci1394
rtc 10600 0

Gives this

/lib/modules/2.6.7_b/kernel/sound/pci/snd-intel8x0.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.5_b/kernel/sound/pci/snd-intel8x0.ko

I am sorry for bad output of lsmod command. I have to figure out an easy way to copy it properly to my posts.

No worries, I can see what I want.

Does the following work?

# modprobe snd-intel8x0

Not first. But when I changed my modprobe.conf file a liittle
alias sound-slot-0 i810_audio
to
alias sound-slot-0 snd-intel8x0

every needed soundmodule get load with modprobe. Thanx.

Still some troubles though. Gnome mixer works but doesn't seem to save mixer settings, so sound is every boot time in its lowest setting.

Gnome soundcard detection still complaints about i810_audio module could not be loaded etc...

Could this be because X11 is trying to load ( my assumption )
/usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/i810_drv.o module ?

Yep, the infamous alsagotcha. Alsa starts with everything turned down to 0. Fun fun fun.

Set your mixer levels using

# alsamixer

Then, as root

# alsactl store

Then add

alsactl restore

to an init script.

Will do that. Thanks.

For alsamixer I have a problem. It works fine when booting to init level 3. If I try to use it under X terminal window it hangs. Best I could get it to go was that it showed upper 3rd of the screen. Is this problem familiar to anyone ?