LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] sound / audio driver for Gateway GT5012 / Sigmatel 9220

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sound / audio driver for Gateway GT5012 / Sigmatel 9220

My workstation is lacking audio drivers; can anybody point me to one?

Code:

Gateway GT5012, Intel mobo

onboard Sigmatel 9220

i686 Pentium D 

Slackware 13.37

32b 2.6.37.6-smp

It seems plenty of pages host Windows drivers--WinXP dual boot sounds fine--but I can't find a working driver for Slackware. I'm hoping someone else has one that they'll share.

I'm tempted to triple boot Ubuntu and see if I can pull its driver to Slackware, but I imagine there's a smarter solution--and I admit I'd rather not partition/install a distro I won't use.

And yes Gateway sucks, but please be gentle; hand-me-downs fit my budget.

PS:
zedmelon's 100th LQ post - ice cream, cake, Guinness and Sam Adams!

The Sigmatel STAC 9220 should work out of the box. What makes you think that you don't have a driver installed for it?
Please post the output of

Code:

lspci -k

Sorry, here's lspci and dmesg

Code:

#11:01:21 root@linnicks ~# dmesg|grep -i audio        

#11:01:27 root@linnicks ~# dmesg|grep -i sigmatel        

#11:01:31 root@linnicks ~# dmesg|grep -i sound        

[    8.632644] input: HDA Intel Line In at Ext Rear Jack as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input8

[    8.640673] input: HDA Intel Mic at Ext Front Jack as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input9

[    8.647425] input: HDA Intel Mic at Ext Rear Jack as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input10

[    8.656000] input: HDA Intel Speaker at Ext Rear Jack as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input11

[    8.663968] input: HDA Intel HP Out at Ext Front Jack as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1b.0/sound/card0/input12

#11:01:36 root@linnicks ~# lspci|grep -i audio

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)

#11:02:40 root@linnicks ~# lspci|grep -i sigmatel

#11:02:45 root@linnicks ~#

So I see that your audio device is recognized. Interesting would be if a driver is loaded, therefore I asked for

Code:

lspci -k

I would assume that one is loaded and that a missing driver is not your issue. Have you unmuted all channels in alsamixer?

Sorry for the delay. My first reply crossed yours, and then I was confirming the below to ensure I'm not lying to you. If I didn't above, I should mention that I'm a desktop Linux n00b. Most servers don't need sound drivers, so I've never encountered this. Also given that, I won't be certain if it's relevant that I'm on KDE 4.7.0.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD (Post 4755807)

What makes you think that you don't have a driver?

First, thanks for replying. I could be making unjustified assumptions, but this box dual boots to WinXP, which has no sound issues. On Slackware YouTube videos and local files play--complete with XMMS visualizations like spectral analyzer--but no sound. I just triple-checked all the above.

My audio control in the corner appears similar to the one I know from WinXP, and I even pull up the mixer--though it shows only a "master" channel. That's a little odd, and with no driver, I'd not expect to see the mixer and icon--but I can't expect to predict every feature in a GUI I've never used.

Here's the lspci output.

Code:

#11:39:58 root@linnicks ~# lspci -k

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5050

        Kernel modules: intel-agp

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82945G/GZ/P/PL PCI Express Root Port (rev 02)

        Kernel modules: shpchp

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5049

        Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel

        Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)

        Kernel modules: shpchp

00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 3 (rev 01)

        Kernel modules: shpchp

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5050

        Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd

        Kernel modules: uhci-hcd

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5050

        Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd

        Kernel modules: uhci-hcd

00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5050

        Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd

        Kernel modules: uhci-hcd

00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5050

        Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd

        Kernel modules: uhci-hcd

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5050

        Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd

        Kernel modules: ehci-hcd

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5050

        Kernel modules: leds-ss4200, iTCO_wdt, intel-rng

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5050

        Kernel driver in use: ata_piix

00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation N10/ICH7 Family SATA IDE Controller (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5050

        Kernel driver in use: ata_piix

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5050

        Kernel driver in use: i801_smbus

        Kernel modules: i2c-i801

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G71GL [Quadro FX 3500] (rev a1)

        Subsystem: nVidia Corporation Device 032b

        Kernel driver in use: nvidia

        Kernel modules: nvidia, nouveau, nvidiafb

04:00.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)

        Subsystem: NEC Corporation Hama USB 2.0 CardBus

        Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

        Kernel modules: ohci-hcd

04:00.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)

        Subsystem: NEC Corporation Hama USB 2.0 CardBus

        Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

        Kernel modules: ohci-hcd

04:00.2 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 04)

        Subsystem: Ads Technologies Inc Device 2101

        Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd

        Kernel modules: ehci-hcd

04:01.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV44A [GeForce 6200] (rev a1)

        Subsystem: Jaton Corp Device 0221

        Kernel driver in use: nvidia

        Kernel modules: nvidia, nouveau, nvidiafb

04:05.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a-2000 Controller (PHY/Link)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5050

        Kernel driver in use: firewire_ohci

        Kernel modules: firewire-ohci

04:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family LAN Controller (rev 01)

        Subsystem: Gateway 2000 Device 5049

        Kernel driver in use: e100

        Kernel modules: e100

I re-read my post above, and the bold looks dickish to me. Sorry; I only intended it as a red-alert, because I've been here eight years but am very green in this area.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD (Post 4755823)

Have you unmuted all channels in alsamixer?

Checking into alsamixer in case the GUI frontend doesn't do it justice...

Quote:

Originally Posted by zedmelon (Post 4755850)

...alsamixer in case the GUI frontend doesn't do it justice...

Wow, it doesn't! Changing levels are instantly replicated to the GUI version--very cool.

I've also double-checked every "mute" control I can find--meant to say that earlier.
:-)

lspci question: Does
"kernel driver in use," mean
"okay now we're using this driver," or is it more like
"we can't use that, because it's already in use?"

No need to apologize, no one can be an expert in any field.

So, as we can see, your audio hardware is recognized and has the snd-intel-hda driver loaded (which is expected). Now we need to know if the right codec for the sigma chip is loaded. Post the output of

Code:

lsmod | grep snd_hda_intel

Side-question: Why do you have KDE 4.7 on Slackware 13.37? It came with 4.5.5 by default, AlienBob has upgrades to 4.6.5 in his ktown repository, but I haven't seen it with 4.7.
If there is anything else non-standard on your system it may be helpful to know that, just in case your issues are caused by this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD (Post 4755863)

Side-question: Why do you have KDE 4.7 on Slackware 13.37?

I wouldn't do something like that intentionally, as I'm pretty timid yet in my GUI--especially after tweaking some really neat 3d effects only to have them vanish under multiple monitors.

I may have lied to you again and suspect I should have reported 4.5.5. Sorry for the misinformation--that probably would've really sounded odd before 4.7 was even out.

Code:

kde-open -v

Qt: 4.7.0

KDE Development Platform: 4.5.5 (KDE 4.5.5)

KIO Client: 2.0

I find myself still slinking back toward the dark side for the sake of getting things done, and I'd like to alleviate that. Having sound will help immensely. After reading the interview with Patrick, I also plan to try xfce for some more speed.

Looking at the lsmod output, I feel like I should be able to get it from here. Is the next step determining if I have snd_hda_codec_idt and/or snd_hda_intel?

Code:

lsmod | grep snd_hda_intel

snd_hda_intel          18443  2

snd_hda_codec          61720  2 snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel

snd_pcm                59843  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec

snd                    43891  15 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_timer

snd_page_alloc          5925  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm

Looks all as it should look. Seems to me that the hardware/driver side is OK, so now we should look at the software side.
What is the output of

Code:

aplay -l

Should look somewhat like

Code:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****

card 0: SB [HDA ATI SB], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]

  Subdevices: 0/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

LOL, I just realized that I have the same sound hardware as you in my laptop, just connected to my AMD chipset instead of your Intel chipset, but I never had to fidle with that, worked out of the box on Debian, Slackware 13.37 and now Slackware -current.

Can you play a .wav file from the command line (using aplay, without a GUI running)?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD (Post 4755918)

Looks all as it should look...I have the same sound hardware as you...worked out of the box on Debian, Slackware 13.37 and now Slackware -current.

Heh. That's funny, perplexing, and encouraging all at once. Makes me think odd thoughts like, it's probably my choice of motor oil or the phase of the moon the day I installed.

I'll drop the GUI and see what aplay gets me. Here's what it gave me for now (no audio yet):

Code:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****

card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog]

  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Victory! After rebooting into Xfce, I can hear audio. I went back into KDE and could hear there as well, but first I had to open alsamixer and
1) unmute the speaker
2) restore PCM level all the way from zero

So something related to KDE was also resetting at least two separate controls which effectively muted my output. I most assuredly did something at one point to sabotage myself (saved session, anyone?), but I would bet $100 that I originally tried the out-of-the-box config before playing with very much. It's odd.

At any rate, it's working now. Thank you TobiSGD for sticking with me, you're the best!

HTH, nice that you worked this out. Have fun with Slackware!

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD (Post 4756009)

Have fun with Slackware!

Yeah, Slackware grows on ya.

This was important to me for the sake of tradition; I wanted to eschew the shortcuts through use of the "friendlier" distros--my wife loves the Ubuntu laptop I built her--but I've used/preferred Slack since ~1999 when a friend led me through my first install. I've just dragged my feet on adopting the desktop.

I've gotta say X has made significant progress since my last attempt in 2002(?), although those more dedicated would certainly point out that I gave up too quickly--and waited too long to try again. I now just need to familiarize myself with Xfce. It's unsettling but exciting to be a n00b again.

(NOTE: even after another reboot, the settings I defined under Xfce remained. My desktop is noticeably quicker under Xfce, so there's no reason to dig around and determine why KDE kept resetting them.)

Thanks again for all your help.