Hello,
I recently installed a new pci sound card on my computer and Mandriva for some reason, has had difficulties utilizing it. I disabled the onboard soundcard in the bios, and now when I boot into linux, it sees the pci soundcard, but I recieve this message when I first login:

Error while initializing the sound driver:
device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No such file or directory)

How can I fix this?

P.S.- I am running a duel boot if that makes any difference, and XP has no difficulties with my new card. The message only appears when I disable the onboard sound in the bios. However, if I don't disable the onboard sound, I have conflicting cards and my sound gets really wacky.

List the device:
ls -l /dev/dsp

If it looks like this, make yourself a member of the audio group.
crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 14, 3 2006-05-26 01:54 /dev/dsp

When I enter that command, all I get is:
ls: /dev/dsp: No such file or directory
How do I get the dsp file? What does it have to do with kmix, and selecting a mixer for my pci soundcard?
-Monty

mknod /dev/dsp c 14 3

Also try
as root

I did the alsaconf and went did all the steps, yet when I logged back in, I still got the same error message about the dsp. My kmix is in the system tray, but it says "no mixer can be found". This is the source, or at least one aspect of the problem, but I don't know how to get a mixer installed or recognized.

-Monty

I think that you need to backup and provide information on what sound card you installed.

Use the command "lspci -v" and post the section with the information about your sound card device. Maybe you need to determine if you need a certain device installed and modprobed before the system thinks that you have a sound card, or maybe for your system a different device should be used instead.

This command should list most of the sound related modules:
lsmod | egrep '(snd|oss|alsa|sound)'

If you have the kernel source installed, look in
/usr/src/linux-2.6.16.13-4/Documentation/sound/alsa/ALSA-Configuration.txt
if not, try this link:
http://mland98.rc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/mem...figuration.txt

This document lists each sound kernel module, and the sound cards that they support. Maybe the system didn't detect your card, and so didn't modprobe the module needed.

Here it is:
(It shows the soundcard, but when I boot into linux, I see in the verbose mode that there is an error [failure] with the sound, after alsa has been configured. Something to do with not detecting any soundcards and "alsactrl")



05:01.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy LS
Subsystem: Creative Labs: Unknown device 100a
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 22
I/O ports at bc00 [size=32]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

Check if the "snd-ca0106" module is loaded. According to ALSA-Configuration.txt, in the kernel source, this is the module that supports "Creative Audigy LS and SB Live 24bit"

I recently went back into the BIOS and enabled "onboard sound" and the dev/dsp/ message does not appear when I log in, and my mixer is back. However, I still don't get sound through my pci soundcard. How do I check the module? When I look at the device drivers, I load the snd-ca0106 driver, but to no avail.
-Monty