Gentoo audio not working --intel AC'97 card
 

Hey guys,

I can't get my audio to work in Gentoo. When I type alsamixer it says I am using a dummy card. The card that I have is built into my motherboard. lspci picks it up as Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER AC'97 Audio Controller. I thought that I put support in when I compiled my kernel...any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

I had a similar problem, but with a different card. I could not get the kernel ALSA support to work, so I went the module route and that worked for me.

See the gentoo ALSA guide here on how to get the ALSA driver module working:

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/alsa-guide.xml

It's usually, just a simple matter of adding the correct card name to the "ALSA_CARDS" option of /etc/make.conf.

e.g. ALSA_CARDS="intel8x0"

(or something like that)

and then doing:

emerge alsa-driver

One caveat: if you go the module route you have to redo "emerge alsa-driver" after each kernel recompile to recreate the sound modules

Ok thanks, I put the into my /etc/make.conf and emerged alsa-driver but now what? Alsamixer still says it's a dummy?

Did you follow the gentoo alsa guide? You have to also re-compile your kernel to remove the kernel support that doesn't seem to be working...

Did you do /etc/init.d/alsasound start?

Ok I tried both methods and neither appear to work when I cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp....
When I restart alsasound by using /etc/init.d/alsasound restart it says:
what does the !! mean? thanks!

That usually means it can't unload the modules, but that shouldn't be surprising since you hadn't loaded them yet.

Did you specify to load the ALSA modules when the system reboots?

Did you reboot? If so, were there any messages re: ALSA?

What does lsmod give you? (before and after a reboot)...

Well I rebooted and it gives me a few hundred alsa errors on boot haha. When I do an lsmod it only gives me one module running and it isn't the alsa one, so its an error even starting it...alsa still says its a dummy. I'm gonna go take a screenshot and put it up....

Here is a screenshot of my desktop with alsamixer and lsmod:

Desktop Picture