now that i finnaly have mplayer installed and playing video, although it is the wrong size and still not pushing the display out to the s-video portion of my card, i just discovered that i have zero sound and that Debian is not detecting my sound card.

it does work and is in a known good working PCI slot. the card is as listed in the title a SB Live Values card.

sujestions, steps, how do i go about installing drivers for linux. all of the installs i have ever done have auto detected all of my hardware with the exception of some of the onboard NICs. in that case i just put in a 3com as i know those work in all linux flavors.


sorry this is kind of an on going project for me. for those not familure with the rest of the threads here is a short break down of my goal.

1. i have been using winXP pro to be my media box to play movies, DVDs, and other media to my TV via my s-video and sound card.

2. i want to replace M$ and use linux, but it must stay as close to clicky as M$ can provide so my wife will not have any headaches, thus not give me any fits.

3. sujestion was to go with Debian Sarge distro and put on Mplayer and maybe xine. after much fighting with my /etc/apt.sources.list i finnaly got mplayer to install properly. well almost. still getting some font error, but i can worry about that next.

4. the only distros i have ever installed are based around RH in the past. RH9/FC1/Whitebox3, and all 3 have auto detected all hardware with the exception of a few onboard NICs. those are easy to get around i just plop in a 3Com and away i fly. ALL have detected my SB Live Values card and have worked from the get go.

Debian is not seeing any sound device. i have no clue how to even begin to trouble shoot hardware inside linux so i have no clue were to start, and or how to get things started in resolving this issue.

so i come to this great site for guidance and help. yes the sound card, mb, all work as they worked perfectly until i put debian on that box.

if you need/want i can find all the links to the other threads that have something to do with this project of mine, just ask and it shall be done.

I guess one of the downsides of using those friendly hardware detecting distributions is you never get to learn about how Linux handles drivers!

A brief primer: Linux runs off a central kernel (basically just the core of the operating system), and there's two ways of adding hardware support into it. The first is to compile it directly into the kernel, which means the kernel would have to be built every time you add new hardware. The majority of hardware support is done via modules, which 'hook into' the kernel and can be inserted and removed at any time. A Debian installation comes with all (or at least all I've ever needed) these modules already created and you just have to add them in. There are some basic linux commands dealing with inserting and removing modules, but the easiest way to do it is to run 'modconf' as root. You can go through it and select any module you want to load, and it will try loading it along with any modules it also needs to run. Some modules also add support for things like different filesystems and networking protocols.

I have a soundblaster live value sound card, so here's a list of the modules and their locations that I ended up loading for it. Some probably aren't even necessary.
kernel/sound/soundcore
kernel/sound/synth/snd-util-mem
kernel/sound/synth/emux/snd-emux-synth
kernel/sound/pci/emu10k1/snd-emu10k1
kernel/sound/pci/emu10k1/snd-emu10k1-synth
kernel/sound/core/snd-hwdep
kernel/sound/core/snd
kernel/sound/core/snd-page-alloc
kernel/sound/core/snd-pcm
kernel/sound/core/snd-rawmidi
kernel/sound/core/snd-timer
kernel/sound/core/oss/snd-mixer-oss
kernel/sound/core/oss/snd-pcm-oss
kernel/sound/core/seq/snd-seq-device
kernel/sound/core/seq/snd-seq
kernel/sound/core/seq/snd-seq-midi

You'll also have to install the packages alsa-base and alsa-oss for the software and libraries needed for sound. Good luck and ask if you have any problems.

ok i was able to get apt-get install alsa-base and alsa-oss, but there is no command as modconf in my system.

also how do i get alsa to start, work, etc.

I can't see how modconf couldn't have been installed on a debian installation, but if its not you can apt-get it. Make sure you're trying to run it from a console as root. I think you also have to get the package alsa-utils to set up alsa. Then you'd just run alsaconf to set it up to use the soundblaster (after you've installed the modules).

well apt-get install modconf was easy enough, but when i started to find the sound drivers for sb (100% sound blaster compatable cards) i get the following error:

now were do i find the informaion it is asking for and how do i read it...

told me that my sound card is not there. now i know it works as it works in windows 98SE/XP Pro, RH9 and Whitebox 3... what gives.

The module necessary isn't sb, its emu10k1 (the actual chipset name for the sound blaster live value). I think sb is only for the older sound blaster cards, so it failed because you don't have one of these.

it would be nice to find that in the list, but these are the only sound modules in my modconf that start with an E


es1370 Ensoniq AudioPCI (ES1370) base
es1371 Ensoniq AudioPCI 97 (ES1371) base
esssolo1 ESS Solo1 based PCI sound card

none of them are for a SB card.


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