I've got a Compaq Armada 7800 laptop with an ess1879 sound card built in and I can't get it working with 'sndconfig'. In all my looking on the web I've found that ALSA seems to be the best alternative, but I can't get ALSA to install and was hoping that someone here might have some pointers for me.

Thanks

perhaps this will help.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=133546

It was a little bit fuzzy but I used a good howtos from google - look for something that you understand.

IF you want to use alsa, than you need a custom kernel - download the sources (I don't think it's easy if you don't have any idea leave it!)

Well if you know at least the basics of the kernel build process than what you should do is:

you disable your sounddriver in the kernel and let sound configured as module

build kernel and modules and install.

then build alsa-driver, afterwards alsa-lib and utils

I downloaded also the alsaplayer and put everything under /opt/alsa.

No I just miss a gtk-mixer

What was important to do is run after installation from the shell following lines - that actually unmuted the alsa-driver
# amixer set Master 100 unmute
# amixer set PCM 100 unmute
# amixer

starting alsamixer didn't unmute

now after this I added some stuff like this below in /etc/modules.conf (Oh, my god, debians conf area! Don't warry it worked!)
I got the output from another program called alsaconf (you find it under $PREFIX/sbin)
If you have devfs (i.e. distros like mandrake and redhat use it as far as I know), then there are different files to modify, consult the docs.

#
## ALSA portion
alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1
## If you have more than one, add:
## alias snd-card-1 snd-intel8x0
## alias snd-card-2 snd-ens1370
## OSS/Free portion
## alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0
## alias sound-slot-1 snd-card-1
##

I think it's better to start experimenting with kernel higher than 2.5 as alsa can be compiled from within the kernel

Hope I could help

i used OSS and had absolutely no problems getting sound to work...

downloaded it, installed it, and it found it and life was good...

just watch it when it initilizes the sound card --

it'll flip the mic on and blow your friggin' ears out...

I almost dropped my laptop when it started squealing!! :P

didn't got your point

what worked OSS, ALSA or both?!

we were discussing problems installing ALSA on 2.4.X kernels the 2.6 series have this included and precompiled in the source code

r3gard5

just oss in my case.
alsa was too damn confusing...

download this, compile that, blah blah blah....


OSS worked like a charm....

yes, I thing you're right.

Anyway when kernel 2.6 replaces 2.4 will have the choice without "confusion".

If you are experimenting with audio you'll find out why ALSA is good and why it's worth to "download this and compile that ...."

Since I use ALSA I really like it and on the surface there is absolutely no difference exept in the sound quallity.

well it still much better to have an alternative and choice isn't it ...

that's the pont of competition in the good sense I think.

regards

i agree...

just gets real confusing --

compile this into the kernel...

JEEZE MAN! I'm running this on a pentium 100!!

lol

Oh, my goodness Pentium 100 ...
Well I have one Pentium I (with floating point bug) . I don't think he'll manage to uncompress my mp3's .... any way I use it like firewall and it has no soundcard in it ...

Installing on such kind of machine without compiling on it is a bit tricky and not for everyone .... shared libraries and so... disgusting

So ... I don't know .. if you have time you can give it a try - i.e. compile it over night (or two)

finally you need to compile just the ALSA portion and perheps some tool (mixer) or so

It wont take long ...

regards