Hi guys!

I've installed Mandriva 2006 free on new PC with ASUS MB K8U-X. Everything was detected correctly, but I can't get any sound from the soundcard ADI AD1888 Soundmax intagrated on the MB.

Since I'm a newbie, I was relying on hints from forum on mandrivalinux.cz.

It included: installing full kernel sources (2.6.14.5), installing ALSA 1.0.10 and a lot of restarting machine. No result.

After every restart I get this message:
"Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No such file or directory)
The sound server will continue, using the null output device."

Everytime I am trying to test the sound, I get the error message: /dev/dsp - no such file or directory.

Here are some descriptions:
Device description in Harddrake (sorry, I have Slovak mutation):
Výrobca (manufacturer): ‎Acer Laboratories Inc. [ALi]
Popis (descript.): ‎M5455 PCI AC-Link Controller Audio Device
Skupina (group): ‎MULTIMEDIA_AUDIO
Pripojenie
Zbernica (bus): ‎PCI
Zbernica PCI #: ‎0
PCI zariadenie #: ‎4
PCI funkcia #: ‎0
ID výrobcu (manufact. ID): ‎4281
ID zariadenia (device ID): ‎21589
ID Podskupiny výrobcu (manufact. sub-ID): ‎4163
Sub-ID zariadenia (device sub-ID): ‎33037
Ovládač (driver)
Modul: ‎snd-intel8x0
Alternatívne ovládače}(alt. drivers): ‎ali5455, i810_audio, nvaudio

Here is the dmesg listing: poliacik.host.sk/dmesg.html

Everything seems to be normally installed and detected, but I do not have any /dev/dsp directory. I found somewhere in the threads that I need a "udev" application, but I don't know how to run it. Thanks for help.

Ivan from Slovakia

did alsa actually 'setup' your sound with no errors?

is your sound card compatible with linux?

do you get 'any' sound from playing mp3's etc?

does sound work in other os like win or knoppix?

Hi, thanks for responding, here are the answers:

did alsa actually 'setup' your sound with no errors? - YES

is your sound card compatible with linux? - I GUESS Yes

The ALSA is supporting AD 1887 and AD 1889 - I hope there is a compatibility also with AD 1888. When I was looking on the ALSA page for this, I've found a small notice:

"Summary: ad1889: add AD1889 driver

move the AD1889 driver to the kernel tree"

- maybe this is the problem with the missing dev/dsp directory

do you get 'any' sound from playing mp3's etc? - NO

does sound work in other os like win or knoppix? - DID Not try, I will try to reinstall the system to SUSE 10,0 - will see if it helps.

Thanks for advice. Ivan.

I don't know what are you missing or doing wrong, but:

is your sound card compatible with linux? - I GUESS Yes

When i was testing ad1888 on linux gentoo sound works, on linux knoppix doesn't work. (tested on linux 2.6) .. so don't givin up

i suppose just because a card works in one distro, doesn't mean it should/could in another (compatible, or not).

compliling a driver/wrapper 'might' help, but again, different distros do things sooo differently, that problems like this are very hard to nail down.

sometimes it is just easier to go out and buy a card that WORKS...lol

In Ubuntu a sound card work!

Install alsa-oss if you haven't done so already. It provides support for the older OSS API, providing binary compatibility for most OSS programs. OSS uses /dev/dsp and alsa-oss will make a /dev/dsp.

Thanks everybody,

I did not try to install Ubuntu because I´ve bought a new soundcard before.

Ivan