Soundblaster Audigy 4 non-pro (or, Why does Linux hate sound?)

kewne · 08-07-2006, 05:56 PM

Hi all,

I've been familiarizing myself with Linux for around 30 hours now. I'm running Slackware 10.2, and I decided to try a task - I said, "is it possible to get this sound card to run in this EXTREMELY manual OS?"

I bet you can guess my dilemma - I can't get it to work.

So the card is a PCI-bus Soundblaster Audigy 4 (the non-pro version), and I'm trying to use Alsa.

-I've successfully downloaded, compiled, and installed Alsa 1.0.9.

-Alsaconfig tells me that I'm running a soundblaster audigy 2. Obviously this is wrong, but I'll go with it if it'll work.

-Alsamixer has everything running on full (all sound up, all switches on).

-onboard sound is turned off in BIOS.

-the card wants to use the emu10k1 module. In fact, I now have a couple emu10k1 sliders in alsamixer... and if I go too far to the right of them, alsamixer quits and cries (read: fatal error, back to command line).

-I have tooled around a little in modules.conf although I've no idea what I did (just followed what the million little HOWTO's and installation instructions said. Then put it back to normal).

-dogpiled, googled, and searched this forum until my fingers were numb. Seems to me these threads mysteriously end before they solve my problem...

NEXT

-tried upgrading to alsa 10.0.11. diiiidn't seem to work. In fact, alsamixer still tells me I'm rolling 10.0.9 .

-Read a website dealing with disabling OSS. Sadly, it wasn't really set up in the language of people who don't even know what OSS is... I mean, what constitutes and OSS module? I've been on linux for a day, maybe.

I would LOVE to post an lspci, but in reality... I have no idea how to copy and paste from my console to here!

So can you help me out? I get no errors from alsa, but no sound (whether I try a sound file or xmms) either. I don't know how to uninstall and reinstall alsa (I can't find instructions on how to uninstall anything). emu10k1 shows up in alsamixer as faulty sliders. I've no idea what modules.conf is or does. And more maddeningly, I don't know how to copy/paste!

Cheers if you can help with any of these!

jonaskoelker · 08-07-2006, 06:50 PM

First, on copy-pasting from your console (I assume you don't have X running):
Install a program called screen. I don't know how you go about installing stuff with slackware, by I've heard about swaret and slapt-get making it easy.

Run screen. Get used to it. Open two screens, one with your browser and one with just bash, having run lspci.

Press Ctrl-A, then left-bracket. Now, move the cursor using h, j, k and l to where you want to start copying from. Press space. Move the cursor to the end of where you want to copy from. Press space again.

Now, press Ctrl-A then right-bracket to insert.

Also, Ctrl-A then question mark will give you a bit of help with screen, but RTFM if in doubt.

---

Secondly, if you're rock bottom new to (GNU/)Linux, starting off with slackware is probably not the right thing--it's generally considered to be aimed at the slightly more hardcore geeks.

I know that your question was "how do I fix sound", not "which distro should I choose", but let me pretend, just for a bit.

Have a look at http://eedok.voidofmind.com/linux/chooser.html and/or http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/. Fill out a questionaire of about ten questions and get a list of distros that'll meet your needs (at least that's the theory of how those sites work). See whether slackware is one of them.

Ubuntu seems to be enjoying a large amount of popularity these days, and is generally regarded as more user-friendly than slackware. I haven't used it much--only their live CD, and rarely at that, but my impression is good.

Be warned that switching distro will not solve *all* of your problems, only some of them. However, if this is day one of (GNU/)Linux for you (which it sounds like), you might be making life (a lot) harder for yourself by running slackware.

Also, welcome to LQ

kewne · 08-07-2006, 07:00 PM

Hi jona!

The tests are hollering Ubuntu and Gentoo at me, good call, but slackware's up there a bit (how does that work...?). My original reason for choosing slackware was that I wanted to start with NOTHING and build from there. On the other hand, I have a copy of MEPIS that I'm busting out as we speak...

I do have the X windowing system, so if you have a way to copy/paste on that, give me a holler. In the meantime, I'll go do an lspci and edit this post when I've got it.

Cheers!

EDIT:

You're going to love this - Firefox (the browser I'm using through X) has CTRL+A reserved for 'select all.' So I can COPY with screen, which is cool, but I can't paste with it. Anybody have any suggestions on how to get that text out of the buffer and into this text box?

masonm · 08-07-2006, 07:23 PM

Ok, this may seem pretty basic but are you certain that your user account is in the audio group and you've unmuted sound using alsamixer?

jonaskoelker · 08-07-2006, 07:51 PM

Ah. Then copy-pasting is much easier. The only problem is getting the data out of an xterm (or whichever terminal emulator you're using) is a sane way, and here's how:

Code:

$ lspci > /tmp/my-lspci
$ kwrite /tmp/my-lspci || kate /tmp/my-lspci || gedit /tmp/my-lspci

Then select all the text (Ctrl-A, or with the mouse), and middle-click where you want to paste it.

Possibly you can use Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V as well.

Interesting reason for picking Slackware. If you want to start with *ABSOLUTELY NOTHING*, you'll find that Linux From Scratch is the ultimate in that regard. However, *I* wouldn't put myself through that unless I had a spare vacation to spend on it. Also, gentoo stage 1 installs start at almost absolutely nothing.

It just struck me that you might actually *want* what slackware is giving you, at least partially. It might be that you want the parts that debian gives you:

One installation method for debian is downloading the netinst CD (or just two floppy images), and from your selected media install a bare-bones system, basically just enough software to start up and install more software. This includes (and this is the important bit) a package manager, making installing software as easy as saying "apt-get install wesnoth".

So, it gives you the bare-bones pick-and-choose-ness of slackware, but takes away the manuality (manualness?); it's still somewhat geared for techies, which may or may not be good.

Anyways, I'm rambling. Sorry that I can't fix your sound, but it sounds like I haven't been completely useless

kewne · 08-08-2006, 12:56 PM

I'm rolling with root (yeah, I know not to, but I need to configure hardware here before I move to users, yes?), so I ought to be in the audio group. On the other hand, I don't know what you mean by audio group, and I wouldn't mind knowing.

Alsamixer is indeed unmuted - everything's turned up, all the switches are on.

Now then: LSPCI

Quote:

00:00.0 Host bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AGP (different version?) (rev a2)
00:00.1 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 1 (rev a2)
00:00.2 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 4 (rev a2)
00:00.3 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 3 (rev a2)
00:00.4 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 2 (rev a2)
00:00.5 RAM memory: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Memory Controller 5 (rev a2)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 ISA Bridge (rev a4)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation nForce2 SMBus (MCP) (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 USB Controller (rev a4)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 USB Controller (rev a4)
00:02.2 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 USB Controller (rev a4)
00:04.0 Ethernet controller: nVidia Corporation nForce2 Ethernet Controller (rev a1)
00:08.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 External PCI Bridge (rev a3)
00:09.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation nForce2 IDE (rev a2)
00:0d.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): nVidia Corporation nForce2 FireWire (IEEE 1394) Controller (rev a3)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation nForce2 AGP (rev a2)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV43 [GeForce 6600/GeForce 6600 GT] (rev a2)
02:07.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB0400 Audigy2 Value

The last line, you can see, labels me as an Audigy2. Which is cool, but it still won't let me play sound. Any ideas?

dambla · 08-09-2006, 02:06 AM

to add yourself to the audio group, as root, edit the file /etc/group and where it says audio:x:<number>: just add your username (i.e. audio:x:<number>:<user_name>) save and exit.

kewne · 08-09-2006, 01:26 PM

Cheers!

But I've got it now...

For some stupid reason, there were two emu10k1s in my alsaconfig. I configured the SECOND one, and it works nicely, now.

Thanks!

jonaskoelker · 08-09-2006, 02:02 PM

Just because you're root doesn't mean you're necessarily in the audio group. However, when you're root, you probably don't need to be in the audio group (as the audio devices most likely are owned and writable by root).

Run `groups' to see which groups you're a member of. You can add users to groups with gpasswd as well (I think it does proper file locking, to protect against concurrent misbehaviour).

See also the `see also' of gpasswd's manual page.