Hi, i just installed kernel 2.6.13 on Slackware 10.2 and everything seems to work I installed the kernel source for that kernel and installed the NVIDIA 3D driver, however i now have a problem with sound and the sound server said it could not initialize

http://img529.imageshack.us/my.php?i...undprob3uh.jpg
(screenshot of error)

Hi binary,

My computer gave me the same message at startup. Although I'm just a linux beginner, Here's a few tricks that I tried :

The simplest solution would be to type in a console :

sudo alsaconf

It will start up the ALSA configurator and, hopefully, the configurator will detect your sound card and make the necessary adjustments.

After that, if your sound card was detected, type sudo alsamixer and raise the volume levels a bit to make sure that your hear something when you test for sound.

In KDE, right-click on the little sound speaker icon at the bottom of the screen and click on quit. Then go into the KDE menu -> Multimedia -> KMix. If you see a bunch of Volume level controllers then your in luck ! Pop in an audio CD, or play a audio file and you should get sound working.

If ever none of those options work, here's a few other things you can do :

in a console, type lspci and look in the list to see if the name of your sound card is listed.

type lsmod and check if there are any modules running with the "snd" prefix

if your sound card isn't listed and no sound modules are present you can type

cd /dev
sudo ./MAKEDEV audio

that should create the /dev/dsp device, then you would need to load the apropriate modules for the sound card. But unfortunately, my limited knowldege on sound card problems stops there. I think that another possible soultion would be to compile the sound modules into the kernel, but unfortunately I don't know how to do that.

By the way, since I'm in the subject, does anyone know how to safely compile sound modules into a kernel ? Because I'd need to do that aswell, but no too sure how.

For most sound cards, the module can be included in the kernel by just selecting that option at config time. Some have to be modules tho - I had an old esonique card a while back that wouldn't work if it was compiled into the kernel - it had to be a module. I've heard of other cards having that problem, but I haven't run across any others myself.

Thanx for your ideas i'll definitley try them out

So When I installed the new kernel did I not install the module that made my sound card work?

Yes, i have had a look @ some similar threads and have seen that the problem might be that i need to install the new ALSA driver for the new kernel 2.6

The module is there, it's just a matter of _how_ it was compiled, directly into the kernel, or as a load-on-demand module. If you kept the same config as your previous kernel, it shouldn't be an issue.