Slackware 12.1 /dev/dsp problems on Dell XPS M1530...

tiedyedsoul · 12-26-2008, 08:23 PM

Hi all,

I recently (yesterday) received a new Dell XPS M1530 laptop with Vista pre-installed. I now have Slackware installed on it, and after a few hours of tweaking, the on board Broadcom Wireless controller is connected to our wireless router through ndiswrapper.

Now, something had bothered me since I first installed Slackware, and booted into KDE... an error message comes up each time, saying dev/dsp could not be found and audio would therefore be routed to the null output device. Thusly, I have no sound.

I believe that the sound card in my system is a pci card, because lspci prints the following section:

Code:

00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)

However, when I run (in root) alsaconf, alsa doesn't detect any pci sound cards. Also, having wanted to ensure against my limited (<6 months) knowledge of Linux, I've tried:

ls /dev,
ls /dev/dsp,
apropos sound,
apropos dsp,
search dsp,
search mixer,
and even using the graphical KInfoCenter,
which displays the contents of lspci under pci,
but under sound says there is no information available about the sound
card.

If anyone could offer any advice, I would be most appreciative. =)

~TDS

cab15625 · 12-26-2008, 09:18 PM

I'm not familiar with the laptop model, but the line from your lspci output that says

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)

suggests that it is one of the audio devices supported by the kernel.

Two things to try:

The lsmod command will tell you which kernel modules (drivers) have been loaded. You should see one called snd_hda_intel. If not, try installing it manually (modprobe snd_hda_intel). If that works, then you can worry about how to make it turn on by default.

Slackware 12.1 is a little dated. You might want to upgrade (either by hand, through something like slapt-get). If you do it right, it will give you a more up to date kernel which should notice your sound card. Alternatively, you can also download the new (as of last week) Slackware 12.2. You could also have a go at compiling the kernel yourself.

Anyway, start with lsmod and look for lines involving "snd" and go from there.

onebuck · 12-27-2008, 04:06 PM

Hi,

You could do a new install for the Slackware 12.2. Or look at the 'lsmod' too locate your sound driver(s). You did run 'alsamixer' then 'alsactl store' to save the settings.

BTW, you will find that you will need to make system level changes as root and it is dependable if you stay out of KDE or the like when making system level changes.