I've been holding off on asking this because I *know* it's gotta be something sooo obvious that I am not seeing it.

I'm using Gentoo with a Gentoo-patched 2.6.7 kernel.

I have an Intel HDA Azalia soundcard with the CMI9880L codec.. I wasn't sure exactly what it was, and if it would work, I read more and I think I understand now.

See alsa-cvslog:

The only thing I am thinking is that a c-media 9880 is very different from a c-media 9880L, but as you will see, I think that the driver must be the correct one..

lspci shows this for sound:
0000:00:1b.0 Class 0403: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 03)
Subsystem: Intel Corp. 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) High Definition Audio Controller
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
Memory at d3800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable)
Capabilities: [50] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [60] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable-
Capabilities: [70] #10 [0091]


So.

Since the driver is not yet in a stable release, I got the development version. Of everything BTW, not just the driver, to prevent conflicts. The module is called snd_azx.

The modules load and appear used, see lsmod:

Module Size Used by
snd_mixer_oss 20864 1
snd_azx 32184 5
snd_pcm 92164 1 snd_azx
snd_timer 26372 1 snd_pcm
snd 54116 12 snd_mixer_oss,snd_azx,snd_pcm,snd_timer
snd_page_alloc 10376 1 snd_pcm


Here's the problem then.

It kind-of works. Alsamixer works about 5% of the time, usually right after a fresh boot. But when it does it only shows 2 channels. Turned up all the way. If you try and change the volume, it usually segfaults. The rest of the time, it just hangs. Hangs meaning you can't even Ctrl-C out of it. If you are on a tty you can't get rid of it at all! KMix hangs too, most of the time, and again when it does work it shows 2 channels.. according to the driver source code it should have way more than that.

My kernel is configured like this, according to a quick checking script:

CONFIG_SND=m
CONFIG_SND_TIMER=m
CONFIG_SND_PCM=m
CONFIG_SND_RAWMIDI=m
CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER=m
CONFIG_SND_OSSEMUL=y
CONFIG_SND_MIXER_OSS=m
CONFIG_SND_PCM_OSS=m
CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER_OSS=y
CONFIG_SND_MPU401_UART=m
CONFIG_SND_VIRMIDI=m
CONFIG_SND_MPU401=m

Modprobe is configured like this:

alias char-major-14-* soundcore
alias char-major-116-* snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-azx
alias sound-slot-0 snd-azx
alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss
options snd cards_limit=1

Proc Asound -----------------------------------------------
Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.6rc2.
Compiled on Aug 11 2004 for kernel 2.6.7-gentoo-r12 (SMP).
0 [HDA ]: Azalia - ICH6 HDA
ICH6 HDA at 0xd3800000 irq 16
0: [0- 0]: ctl
16: [0- 0]: digital audio playback
24: [0- 0]: digital audio capture
33: : timer
cat: /proc/asound/hwdep: No such file or directory
00-00: ICH6 HDA : ICH6 HDA : playback 1 : capture 1

What does that mean, that /proc/asound/hwdep is not found?

Maybe it is permissions, but then it doesn't work as root.. I've tried snddevices script and everything, nothing works. I can get it to play music but I can't hear it.

I'm thinking maybe it's the wrong driver, or it's still in a very unstable form and therefore doesn't work, but I was wondering of anything else could cause this problem. If noone here can help me I'll try emailing the people who wrote the drivers and see if they can help me.

Thanks in advance.

*bump*

Anyone know what might cause this problem?

I just installed Fedora, I still have the problem.

I have the same card, also can't get it to work (didn't try CVS, only alsa 1.0.7rc1). I guess the driver just doesn't fully work yet

Please let me know when you find anything out about this.

Hi,

1.0.7rc1 and CVS are pretty much the same at the moment.

Documentation of 1.0.6 says "Added Intel ICH6 HD Audio (Azalia) driver". In my opinion this is but a fragment of a driver.

OK, you can modprobe it. aplay gives terrible noise coming out of the speakers.
alsamixer -> crash
alsactl -> kaboom

think we will have to wait another two or thee years, until they will provide a driver which is fully functional. Intel hardware is just too exotic.

Hm, years? I hope, 2 or 3 months will be enough - any longer and I'll have to buy another sound card to use until this gets fixed. Actually, I might do that in 2 or 3 weeks already or earlier if I find a really cheap one. Hopefully the ALSA devs are working on this problem though, and we'll have sound soon

I just looked at azx.c in CVS, and I don't feel I'm qualified to find the problem in there :P But maybe should write to them and offer help with testing?

Hm, maybe we should.

But on the other hand, mary posted a similar massage to the alsa-devel mailing list on august 20th. According to the mailing list archive she hasn't even got an answer which is disappointing.

If you take a look at azx.c in cvs, you will find, that the changes of the last weeks were only cosmetic (fixed compilation, removed debugging messages and stuff like that). This is also disappointing.

If I take a look at who is working on the drivers, then it seems to me, as if some of them were closely related to SuSE. Well, at least according to their mailing addresses. If I wanted to sell Personal Editions, then I'd take more effort.

Took my old Soundblaster Live which of course runs perfect with the emu10k1 driver. But this renders those audio plugs on the front panel useless, which is disappointing.

Yeah, just found that mailing list post. It even has a kernel traceback for the crash! (How do you create such a traceback btw.? And is it possible to also debug a freeze, not a crash?)

Anyway, you're right, doesn't look like anyone is currently working on this.

A new 10$ card it is for me then (my last non on-board soundcard is an ISA SB16 which doesn't fit)..

creating a message like she did should be easy.
With no sound drivers loaded, key in the following commands:
modprobe snd-azx
alsamixer
dmesg
Well, thats enough for me to produce similar output.

Debbuging those crashes, well, I'm not familiar with c-programming and sound drivers. What a newbie like you and me possibly could do is:
./configure the driver with --with-debug=detect
This causes the output of those snd_printdd statements to be written to /var/log/messages and you can have a look at it with dmesg.
Insert my own snd_printdd's and try to "hunt down" locations in the code where the problems occur.
But in my opinion that's hard work, and I guess due to the freezes I would have to fsck my harddrive more than once.

Well, I bought an SB Audigy soundcard, because I got sick of dealing with this.

But, there is something on the mailing list, about fixing a kernel crash with the azx driver... I haven't tried it, since I have the SB card now, but maybe it will work now?

I had emailed Andy Kopp at Intel, who was one of the people credited for writing the driver, he told me that the driver was limited, and therefore having 2 channels was normal, but he acted as if the card should work - although limited.

I wish you luck getting your sound working.

Thanks, I looked at the sourceforge mail archive, seems the crash fix is only for the detecting stage though - but my impression was the azx driver will need some other changes before it gets useable. I also bought a new card by now, and I'll only try the azx driver again when it has found its way into a debian kernel.

I have a vaio e series laptop with a azalia sound card. Fatdog 64(puppy) is the only distro where I have sound. All other distros show the mixer setting correct, but no sound. Only Fatdog 64 511 ?