open a console su to root. Then run alsaconf. This has always worked for me. You will also have to open the mixer to set levels. A note in alsaconf reminds you how.

Linux, IBM ThinkPad 600E, and Sound (and more)
As much as I struggled with it about 6 months ago, I must now say this: It's easy. Really.

I have an IBM ThinkPad 600E (model 2645) which I adore. It's a wonderful notebook--one of the best I've ever used. I bought one not long after leaving my old job. I had a 600E there and fell in love with it. So I had buy one for myself when I left.

IBM, on the other hand, was stupid for putting two things in the notebook that Linux couldn't grok:

The WinModem
The Sound Chipset
Luckily sound isn't much of an issue anymore. Here's how I got it working.

Searched Google to see how others did it.
Found that someone at SuSE had mostly documented it!
Upgraded to Mandrake Linux 7.1 because I wanted to try it and I knew I'd have a decent kernel and set of modules. (I had messed up the modules 6 months ago when I last tried to get this working.)
Created a /etc/aumixrc which contains:
vol:100:100:P
synth:100:100:P
pcm:100:100:P
speaker:99:99:P
line:45:45:P
mic:0:0:R
cd:65:65:P
mix:0:0:P
igain:75:75:P

Added these two lines to /etc/conf.modules:
alias char-major-14 cs4232
options cs4232 io=0x530 irq=5 dma=1 dma2=0

Added these lines to /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S99local:
/sbin/modprobe cs4232
/usr/bin/aumix -L

Rebooted
Upon reboot, I found that xmms, mpg123, cdplay, and everything just worked as expected.

Memory
It's worth noting that Linux only sees the first 64 of the 128MB of RAM in my notebook by default. I help it out by adding an append line to /etc/lilo.conf such that the relevant block looks like this:

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux
root=/dev/hda1
append="mem=130496k"
read-only

Video
I've found that running the SVGA XFree86 server works great, as long as it is in 16bit color mode. Running it in 24bit color makes it slow as hell. But 16bit is excellent.

That's is.

There is no reason to use the SVGA XFree86 server since there is a specific server called neomagic that works very well. You should get better performance with that one.

As for me and sound on my 600E I just discovered a stupid thing: Alsa has been freezing my computer solid for the past several months. When I would try to load the snd-cs4236 module the computer would stop responding with a fat big kernel panic. This is the reason I resorted to OSS sound and have recommended other to do the same thing. Now just the other day I used the "Initialize" function in the BIOS, and when I rebooted Alsa works without a problem. The sound quality is a lot better than when using OSS and performance seems a lot better as well. Works with both 2.4.25 as well as 2.6.4.

Håkan

Hi all!

Hey cjabingham, I'm curious...

When you made the /etc/aumixrc file, did you make it a executable script, or did you just save it as a .txt file? If the latter, will the system see these instructions and execute them correctly?

Also, when you said:

which modules were you referring to? As I recall, there are lots of modules in the /etc directory with the .conf extension. For everyone's benefit, please be specific as possible.
(No offense intended, but I believe this issue to be one of the great failings of this type of assistance; no one knows what anyone else's expertise level is and ends up assuming everyone knows what they are referring to, and from what I have seen, this board is notorious for this type of posting. Just my .02 cents)

I am really interested to hear your response.

Thanks!

sax

/etc/conf.modules, which he referred to in his post, is the old name for what should be called /etc/modules.conf according to newer standards. Some distributions still use the name /etc/conf.modules, but they both have the same syntax and are interchangable. You should only have one of them, though.

You don't have to make the aumix.conf config file executable since it's not executed, but the values are read by aumix. Setting it to be world readable (chmod a+r /etc/aumix.conf) should be lax enough to let every user make use of it.

Ramble: My Alsa setup is very simple and works without a hitch. The lines I have in my /etc/modules.d/alsa (you could use /etc/modules.conf) are as follows:
Give Alsa another try, it's a lot better than OSS.


Håkan

Hey Kramer,

I just saved the file /etc/aumixrc as a regular text file in gedit or kedit. As for the etc/modules.conf file, I either saved it in modules.conf or conf.modules, again as a regular text file as one of these was not in my linux distribution.



Chris.

Hi all!

After many trials and tribulations, I have finally settled on a distribution that runs pretty smoothly, and is able to do what I want it to on my IBM Think Pad 600e: Red Hat 9.

While I have gone the ALSA route and installed the necessary drivers and utilities successfully, I have found an easier method that works pretty quickly: using the sndconfig tool with the –noprobe option.

After running the tool as root without the switch, I first got an error message that said it detected a Cirrus Logic 4610 sound card, and that this card was not supported. Then I found that you could run sndconfig with the –noprobe switch and choose your own make and model sound card, as well as the settings. As most TP600e Linux users will know by now, the cs4610 is not the correct model, and that we should be using the cs4236. Once this was selected, I just had to choose my settings, which I got from the following IBM site:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...GR-4BP6Q6.html

After selecting these settings, all that was left was to unmute the sound and play the sample, which worked!

Although it is not the best solution and relies on old technology, it works! And while I would like to have the full capabilities of ALSA on my system, these ARE speakers on a laptop for crying out loud; they are not going to provide the best stereo sound available, but they will give you the ability to hear a fairly accurate representation of how the sound that you would like to hear should sound.

In any case, after working and researching this issue, this is by far and away the easiest solution that I have found to work on this issue, provided the limitations stated previously.

Hope this helps!

Wait, an Alsa driver works with Cirrus Logic? All this time I've been trying to find a driver for a Cirrus Logic 4510, but if I can use an ALSA driver, that would be a lot easier.