ive been trying to get the nvidia driver installed for a while now, and i read somewhere that it worked better with 2.6.x, so i updated my 2.4.22 slack9.1 system to 2.6.0. after i did that, i ran the installation for the nvidia, which now works nicely
however, now i get no sound. i set the sound card support to compile with the kernel, and alsa to load as a module. i removed the alsa packages, and installed the 1.0.2 driver(partially, see below), lib, and util packages from the alsa site. now when i start kde it says "/dev/dsp could not be found", and obviously, the sound doesnt work.
i also saw that the nvidia driver installed its own sound driver. could that be a problem ?

from all the other sound threads ive read through, i'll include some important stuff here:

#modprobe soundcore
module soundcore not found

#lsmod
Module Size Used by
nvidia 2071656 -

#lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82850 850 (Tehama) Chipset Host Bridge (MCH) (rev 04)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82850 850 (Tehama) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 04)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #1) (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #2) (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #3) (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA/CA/DB PCI Bridge (rev 81)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801DB ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801DB ICH4 IDE (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801DB SMBus (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV25 [GeForce4 Ti 4200] (rev a3)
02:07.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 41)
02:07.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 41)
02:07.2 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 02)
02:09.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
02:0a.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 04)
02:0c.0 RAID bus controller: Promise Technology, Inc. PDC20276 IDE (rev 01)

i also got errors when trying to "make" the alsa driver. the lib and util worked fine tho.
...
include/linux/proc_fs.h:253: `PDE' previously defined here
make[3]: *** [/storage/downloads/alsa-driver-1.0.2/kbuild/../acore/hwdep.o] Error 1
make[2]: *** [/storage/downloads/alsa-driver-1.0.2/kbuild/../acore] Error 2
make[1]: *** [/storage/downloads/alsa-driver-1.0.2/kbuild] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-2.6.0'
make: *** [compile] Error 2

#rexima
rexima: couldn't open /dev/mixer.

thats all ive got for now, let me know if you need more info.
thanks !

When you compiled the kernel, what options did you choose on the sound menu? (sorry, I'm only familiar with make menuconfig). I enabled sound support (CONFIG_SOUND=y) and nothing else on the sound menu. Apparently if you enable anything else it can prevent the ALSA modules loading. I'm using the 2.6.2 kernel, the Nvidia driver and the alsa-driver-1.0.1.tar.bz2 is working well for me.
"/dev/dsp could not be found" - does /dev/dsp exist?Is this the first time you installed the Alsa drivers? If so, did you run the ./snddevices script inside the driver source (after you ran make install) to create the /dev entries? If the /dev nodes exist, have you
chmod a+rw /dev/dsp /dev/mixer
so you can access them as a normal user?
Also, what compiler did you use to compile the drivers? I have to use
make CC=/opt/gcc-2.95.3/bin/gcc
when I compile the ALSA drivers as that is the compiler I use to build the kernel. I hope some of this helps. Good luck.

i used the make menuconfig. i enabled sound card support, and alsa, but i had alsa loaded as a module.

/dev/dsp exists as a character device, whatever that means.

the alsa drivers were installed along with my kernel, but i read that the drivers that came with the system were not compatible with 2.6.x, so i got the 1.0.2 drivers off alsa's site.
i wasnt able to run ./snddevices because the drivers didnt actually install - i got the error that i posted above, in the first post.

i chmodded the /dsp and /mixer, but i still get the same error.

shouldnt there be more modules loading then just the nvidia ?

when i look in /lib/modules/2.6.0/kernel/, theres drivers and sound, but it doesnt have the 1371 loaded under either one. shouldnt it have those loading somewhere, if i chose to load it as a module in the kernel menuconfig ?

I still think you should select no to everything on the sound menu except for the first one, Sound card support.
What about modules.conf? You must have something in that as you got the nvidia driver to load, but what have you got in that for the sound modules? For what it's worth, try adding these lines (it can't do any harm)

actually, i just recompiled the kernel, and chose only the sound card support, like you said.
so i did lsmod, and the soundcore is loading now, which is good. i went through the alsa directions to install the drivers, utils, and lib, and alll that worked. now i put the lines
# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-ens1371
# module options should go here

# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

in modules.conf.
i rebooted, and it didnt load the snd-ens1371 module by default. so i did a modprobe snd-1371 and it loaded them, but i still dont get sound. when i choose to use the alsa driver on xmms, it says "couldnt open audio".

it looks like its playing when i choose oss, but i get no sound. i turned up the volume on my speakers, xmms, and alsamixer, but still nothing.

it says "couldnt open audio" - That sounds like a permissions problem, time to try
chmod a+rw /dev/dsp /dev/mixer
(it can't hurt)
Run (as root) alsamixer and go all along the channels pressing "m" to un-mute all the channels and use the up arrow to raise the volume on all the channels. The error messages are changing. You're getting there.

just to make sure - this is my modules.conf. up to nvidia was already there, but it told me to add the ALSA portion on that alsa project site.
im guessing i should be able to take out doubles - is that right ?

# --- BEGIN: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---
# --- ALSACONF verion 0.9.0 ---
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-ens1371
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
options snd major=116 cards_limit=1
options snd-ens1371 index=0
# --- END: Generated by ALSACONF, do not edit. ---

alias char-major-195* nvidia

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-ens1371
# module options should go here

# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

# card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss

good point.
i sorta got sound working. i have to run modprobe snd-ens1371 and then run alsamixer to turn up the volumes.
how do i make it so the module loads automatically ?
this is my modules.conf file now, everything else is commented out.

alias char-major-116 snd
alias snd-card-0 snd-ens1371
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-8 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss
options snd major=116 cards_limit=1
options snd-ens1371 index=0

Try changing the order, you've got
alias snd-card-0 snd-ens1371
before
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
so snd-card-0 hasn't been loaded yet. Try putting
alias snd-card-0 snd-ens1371
at the end. As for loading the volume levels at boot, try a bootscript
http://danb.homelinux.org:81/read/bl...sa-driver.html

i tried changing the order, it still doesnt load automatically.
right after boot it only shows nvidia loaded, but when i run modprobe snd-ens1371 it loads the drivers and the sound works.
im not too concerned about the mixer settings, i would think that when the sound driver gets loaded, the settings will stay the same.

any other suggestions for the module loading automatically ?

Have you read this page? http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc...module=ens1371
scroll to the bottom, these options might be worth trying in modules.conf

hmm, well, thats actually almost exactly what i have posted above my last post.
so ya, i tried it. thanks tho.

Try changing Control Center -> Sound & Multimedia -> Sound System -> hardware -> audio device to Threaded Open Sound System. I did that and it worked fine.
Just make sure that you compiled in OSS emulation.

hmm... i dont have a hardware setting.
its kde 3.1, if that helps.
all i really need to do is load the snd-ens1371 module on boot. how do i do that ?

I had a similar problem with a module not loading on boot up earlier. I had to enter "/sbin/modprobe <module name>" at the end of the /etc/rc.d/rc.local file. I am on RH8 so my path may be different. Hope it helps.