Problems with the function key, sound quality, and a module question.
 

Hello:

A few quick questions:

Every time I try to use the function (Fn) key on my Gateway 450XL to do things like display the battery status or dim/brighten the LCD, the system freezes (COLD). This is the only stability issue I've encountered thus far running Slackware 9.1 on the new 2.6.1 kernel. I have ACPI enabled, by the way. How should I go about fixing this? I'd like access to those functions.

Also, has anybody else experienced sub-par sound quality using ALSA? I'm playing mp3s in XMMS using headphones [XMMS output is set to ALSA], and noticing skips and blips and the like. It's not horrible, but could be much better (especially considering that mp3s and headphones will be my only access to music once I go abroad). This Gateway is using the onboard audio (the mobo is an i855, so the hardware is an AC '97).

Lastly, aside from my rc.modules, is there another way to control what modules are loaded into the kernel? I think some redundant things are being loaded on startup, and I'd like to prevent that.

Thanks,

rk

My laptop is old and not ACPI compliant so I'll skip that one and leave it to others to try to answer.

As for skipping in XMMS: In XMMS, open the Preferences menu and choose Configure Output plugin. Increase the prebuffer to about 5 seconds. That usually solves the skipping on my old laptops. You could also try to change from the Alsa output plugin (if that's what you use) to the OSS output and see if that works, or the reverse if you use OSS output.

I don't know much about Slackware-specific module loading, but a lot of modules have quite a lot of dependancies. Alsa modules will load up a whole bunch of support modules for instance, even if they are not obviously related to the Alsa module itself. Look at the "Used by" field in the lsmod output.


Håkan