Dell Docking station(PR01x) analog audio

CombatWombat42 · 03-28-2007, 03:00 PM

I just installed Debian(uname -a: Linux (hostname) 2.6.18-4-686 #1 SMP (date) i686 GNU/Linux) on my dell precision m70. A while back the 1/8"jack that output sound on the actual computer broke, but I have a dock.
Under windows the audio jack on the dock works fine, and under Linux I have used a usb sound card, but I cannot get Linux to output sound to the docking station jack. I have tried "aplay -D hw:0,0,0 sound.wav" and tried messing around with those numbers but when i change the 2nd number is says "aplay: main:550: audio open error: No such file or directory" and when i change the last number it says "aplay: main:550: audio open error: Device or resource busy". When I change the first number to 1 and the usb card is plugged in it works.

I was just wondering if any one knows how to fix this, or what numbers need to go in those place, or what programs I could run to try to get some sound out of that port so I could identify it.

lspci

Code:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev d3)
00:1e.2 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.3 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801FB/FBM/FR/FW/FRW (ICH6 Family) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801FBM (ICH6M) SATA Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV41 [Quadro FX Go1400] (rev a2)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 01)
03:01.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI6515 Cardbus Controller
03:01.5 Communication controller: Texas Instruments PCI6515 SmartCard Controller
03:03.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4309 802.11a/b/g (rev 03)

Unknown_User · 03-28-2007, 03:51 PM

Not sure if I am going to be much help here as this isn't my particular bag but.....

The audio jack socket on the docking station connects to the laptop via the loads-of-pins connector on the bottom of the laptop. The OS therefore has to have a driver to communicate via this physical bus, it isn't a simple physical connector.

I am guessing that if the Linux driver isn't spot on then the OS doesn't connect to the docking station jack properly and that it isn't related to the sound driver itself.

Speculation on my part. Does anybody know if my theory is complete rubbish or an educated but lucky guess? If it isn't a daft thought, does anyone know which module controls the laptop/dock interface?