I've got a pretty new install of Fedora 3 that has had just Gnome installed so far. The sound was working fine with it. I installed KDE and now it doesn't work under either. I go to play songs with the music player and nothing(ogg files). The hardware browser still lists the card(SB Audigy), and the sound detection lists it properly but the test sound button gives nothing now. The speakers/card are fine as they work under WinXP. No idea what installing KDE did but its a mystery to me.

Have you tried running "alsamixer".

A) Run alsaconf to make sure you are using the correct drivers
B) Make sure that you are a member of the "audio" group.
C) In the KDE configuration, KMenu -> Sound & Multimedia -> Sound System
Change the Auto-suspend idle time to something like 2 seconds.

i used an old SB 16 sound card.

I found that to get sound working i need to do a 'modprobe sb' to get the sound module loaded.

not sure if this helps

some of the older SB cards actually used the
ensoniq 1370 (1371) chipset.........make sure these are enabled as modules in your kernel so ALSA can find and use them........

A) I get an errr when tried. Dont have it installed or something.
B) No idea what you mean by this. If its some special group it doesn't exist on my machine that I know of.
c) I did this.


To the last 2 posters, I have a SB Audigy not an old SB16 or onboard audio.

I have a problem when using a laptop with bumping the touch panel while typing. The last part of the line was deleted without my noticing. Sorry! I've edited my previous post.

A) Run alsaconf to make sure you are using the correct drivers
B) Make sure that you are a member of the "audio" group.
C) In the KDE configuration, KMenu -> Sound & Multimedia -> Sound System
Change the Auto-suspend idle time to something like 2 seconds.

Making yourself a member of the "audio" group allows you access to the /dev/dsp device. I read once that there were once UNIX terminals that had microphones. The '/dev/audio' device was two way. Reading from this devices allowed one user to eavesdrop on conversations at another station. Originally any user could access the device.

You need to su root to run alsaconf

try killing Arts (the sound server which uses KDE)
control center -> Sound -> sound system (disable sound system)

And look at the "volume control." On my system, every time I start KDE, all ouput devices are set to "mute," and all volumes to zero. So, of course, sound does not seem to work untill I unmute the output. (Sometines I have to go to "detect sound card" and play the test sound before sound will work.)

If anyone knows how to convince KDE that I'd like to preserve my voulne control setting across restarts, I'd appreciate a hint.

PTrenholme: Put a script (text file with commands on it) in the directory ~/.kde/Autostart with a command whci sets the volumes you want...
i.e. the command
amixer set Master 15
would set the Master to 15% (for alsa)...
Cheers!!!

Thanks for the hint. Turns out to be a setting in /etc/asound.state which is found by trying to run the KDE menu items for "sound mixer" and "asla," both of which were bound to commands that won't work in a KDE window.

Trying them in a terminal window with the "--help" option pointed me to the asound.state file, which seemed fairly clear.

I do wounder why "alsactrl" and "aumix" (and also "alsamixer") only work from the command line, and come up in VT100 format on my system.

Ah well, my "sound system" is just a pair of speakers connected to the motherboard, so I don't need much sophistication.

Again, thanks "bdox."

so, you solved you "problem" PTrenholme?
and yours Beckerjr?

Well, no, I still have the "problem." Apparently the "asound.state" file is reinitalized during the boot process.

But it's not too hard to pop up the voulme control applet and unselect the master volume mute, and push the sliders to the top.

Oh, I also notice that any application using the sound system also starts with its volume control set to zero. Again, not a big deal to adjust the volume to where I want it.

But it's quite strange that the volume control settings aren't "sticky."

In any case, I, too, would be interested to find out if Beckerjr's problem might be related to mine.

PTrenholme, does the commands

amixer set Master 100 unmute
amixer set PCM 100 unmute

unmute your sound-sys?