I'm quite new to the Linux distributions and had recently discovered that Mandrake had released 7.1b for Sparc. I downloaded the iso images and performed an installation on a Sun Sparc Ultra5.

The installation was suprisingly fast and extremely easy. After the installation was complete I configured my network settings using Drakconf. I was amazed how quick the setup was to complete as compared to a full installation of Solaris 8.

Aside from networking my greatest interest was to utilize an Ultra workstation as an audio processing machine. (record, edit, etc..)

That's where my story begins. With a previous installation of Solaris 8, all appropriate sound modules worked (play mp3's, cd's, etc..)

After I installed Mandrake Linux 7.1b the following occurred!

When I click on the mixer settings within kde I receive a kde error.
"KDE: Could not write to mixer"

When I shutdown the system to reboot I observe the following error message during the Hardware checks.

"Saving mixer settings: aumix sound_mixer_read_devmask [Failed]"

Is this a hardware detection failure? or lack of a specific driver. I am not certain what the internal sound card manufacture is or type. (Sun obviously).

I went through the KDE control center and was unable to locate any hardware settings. If anyone has had experience with this trouble I would greatly appreciate it.

FYI: Prior to installing Linux, I had configured KDE 1.1 for Solaris 8 and was able to play mp3's, cd's etc.. as mention above.

Also, understanding that this product was in beta, I attempted the same installation on an Ultra10 and got the same results.

Any assistance with thread would be extremely appreciated. My main objective is to develop a flexible, powerful system utilzing existing hardware for guitar processing and recording.

I also would highly welcome musicians in this thread that have successfully achieve the objectives I mentioned above. I am open to a standard Pentium system as well. I have a couple of Ultra's in my office and given their going rates on Ebay I felt this would be a great economical choice.

But, first back to no sound.

Thank you,
Todd

Update:

I had also previously configured xmms to run on solaris and worked fine once I moved the library files in the correct spot. I am able to load xmms and it doesn't error out. But when I attempt to play an mp3 the pc speaker squeals out of control. The volume control on xmms has no effect and being that I can't get to the KDE mixer I have to close out xmms.

I did locate the sound module application called aumix. If I attempt to run it from the menu it does nothing. When I run it from the command line with or without arguments it successfully excepts values but doesn't appear to resolve my issues. I haven't tried cd's (currently don't have any) or Midi.

I would like to focus on access to the KDE mixer problem first.

Thank you,
Todd