I'm a real linux newbie. Only been running redhat 9.0 for about 2 days now. The problem is no sound whatsoever. When I try system settings>soundcard detection there is no soundcard detected. I get an error message when I log in that "sound server informational message: error while initializing the sound driver: device /dev/dsp can't be opened (no such device). The sound will continue, using the null output device."

I don't even know where to begin to troubleshoot this.
I'm using a Creative Sound Blaster 16 plug & play card (i think, I also wrote down Creative AWE64 16-bit Audio (SB16 compatible).

My system is probably scandelously old (1998) but I rather like the ability to listen to music on it. I'll take anything....a pointer, tip, link to a tutorial or article, anything

Thanks,
Trinity

OK try running the command "modprobe -l | grep sb" and let me know what you get. I'm assuming this is an ISA card. If it is pci do "lspci"

Rus

modprobe -l | grep sb

how would I type the line in the middle?

trinity

try modprobe -l | grep -i awe and cut/paste

Rus

I get

[trinity@dhcp-1648-7 trinity]$ modprobe -l | grep -i awe
bash: modprobe: command not found
[trinity@dhcp-1648-7 trinity]$

tried it in root and got the same thing. :/

trinity

/sbin/modprobe?

Rus

[trinity@dhcp-1648-7 trinity]$ /sbin/modprobe
modprobe: Nothing to load ???
Specify at least a module or a wildcard like \*
[trinity@dhcp-1648-7 trinity]$


lol. no idea what any of this means.
trinity

any new thoughts? do I need drivers? does redhat just hate me?

trinity

Your card may be ISA? If it is you may need to run 'sndconfig' as root. This may not work in Redhat but in my other system I had to run it. When it lists the card make sure you select the right one with the arrow keys. Mine picked up 'sound blaster' but not 'sound blaster 16' which is what I had. You can probably just return through the rest.

This may not work but it is worth trying. If you get "bash" it didn't work, Ignore this post.

Thanks for the suggestion.......I get the bash: command not found thing though. The only thing I seem to be able to do is go to system settings>soundcard detection and find out that its not detecting anything. And when RedHat starts up there's a red "failed" that has to do with sound among all the green "ok"'s when booting.

Any other suggestions?I really want some sound on this thing.....

trinity

Trinity I am also having the same problem. I have Slackware 9 with a Crystal WDM sound card and there is no love from my machine for the sound. Just letting you know someone out there feels ur pain.

P.S. I tried that sndconfig also and got the same error message

Trumptight

Actually I do feel better...misery loves company :P. j/k. I hope we both can figure out this sound issue. I'm burning through AA batteries in my discman.

trinity

I found your posting while looking for something else, but thought that the following information may be helpful to you. I am successfully using a Soundblaster AWE Gold under Mandrake 9.1, and it works very well with most audio applications under both KDE and Gnome, including Kmid (using the sound card 8 MB GM sample to play MIDI files), XMMS (good general audio player), Noteedit (great KDE2/Qt2 based note editor) and others. Unfortunately, I still have some problems with some newer beta applications (e.g. Rosegarden4), which is why I was looking here for tips.

Part of your problem seems to be that you do not seem to be running things AS root, but rather FROM root! ... I note your post on 31 st July...

> I get

> [trinity@dhcp-1648-7 trinity]$ modprobe -l | grep -i awe
> bash: modprobe: command not found
> [trinity@dhcp-1648-7 trinity]$

> tried it in root and got the same thing. :/

You MUST change to root user to do system stuff (using su). I recommend doing the following steps to check what is going on with your system. Hopefully you will be able to see if you have the right RPM packages loaded and your kernel configured for your sound card. If you still have problems going from here, perhaps you would like to post the contents of the text files produced as a reply?

1. First of all, open any terminal and su (substitute user) to root (or - , for quickness)...

bash-2.05b$ su -
Password:
[root@richlnx root]#

2. Make a temporary directory under the /root one (where you will be), and change into it, e.g.....

[root@richlnx root]# mkdir mytmp
[root@richlnx root]# cd mytmp
[root@richlnx mytmp]#


3. Enter the following commands, one after another after you get the command prompt back. This will save the results in text files ...

uname -a > uname.txt
modprobe -l | grep isa/sb > modprobesb.txt
rpm -q -a | grep multimedia > multimedia.txt
rpm -q -a | grep linuxconf > rpmlinuxconfig.txt
rpm -q -a | grep alsa > alsa.txt


4. Here are the text file contents when I run these commands ...

a. uname.txt

Linux richlnx.christchurch 2.4.21-0.13mdk #1 Fri Mar 14 15:08:06 EST 2003 i686 unknown unknown GNU/Linux

(I am actually running Mandrake 9.1 on this machine - ignore the date!)

b. modprobesb.txt

/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-emu8000-synth.o
/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sb-common.o
/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sb16-csp.o
/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sb16-dsp.o
/lib/modules/2.4.21-0.13mdk/kernel/sound/isa/sb/snd-sbawe.o

(these entries seem to show that everything for my Soundblaster AWE64 Gold is available)

c. multimedia.txt

kdemultimedia-3.1-10mdk
kdemultimedia-aktion-3.1-10mdk
kdemultimedia-devel-3.1-10mdk

(you don't NEED the last two, but must have the first one for sound under kde)

d. rpmlinuxconfig.txt

linuxconf-lib-1.29r3-2mdk
gnome-linuxconf-0.67.1-7mdk
linuxconf-1.29r3-2mdk

(the Linux Config packages so that you can run it under X or not)

e. alsa.txt

kalsatools-1.2.8-4mdk
libalsa2-0.9.0-0.14rc7.1mdk
libalsa2-devel-0.9.0-0.14rc7.1mdk
pd-alsa-jack-extended-0.36-1mdk
libalsa-data-0.9.0-0.14rc7.1mdk
xmms-alsa-0.9.7-3mdk

(you will not NEED all of these, especially the devel and jack entries)

.... let me know if you still need help. I am no expert myself, either, but may be able to assist.

Best regards...