I'm finding this to be quite a challenge. I recently installed Linux, and I believe I got everything up and running except now that I want to hear some sound, I realize that it doesn't work. I have Slackware 9.1 installed. After a little bit of searching, through this forum and at google, I decided that the ALSA drivers were probably not good for my sound chip, an SiS 7012, that came with an ECS i-Buddie 4 A928 laptop (SiS 650 chipset). So I followed the advice of some site to rmmod all the ALSA modules that were listed in lsmod, and I loaded the ac97_codec, soundcore, and i810_audio modules. I tested the sound, and it worked at that moment. So now I'm trying to find out how I can stop the ALSA modules from loading at all.

But this brings another slew of questions for me. Where would I go to find out how devices are loaded into Linux? I figured that in KDE I could go to the Control Center, System Administration, Linux Kernel, but them I'm not sure if that's the right approach, and so I figured that before I do something I might regret, I might as well ask about it first. So, I have a few requests. Can anyone give me a general rundown of how Linux loads devices, and how I know whether some devices are loaded from modules, or from the kernel itself, or if there's a difference? Also, if modules automatically loading during startup, what file can I look at to see what modules are loading? And is there anything else I should know about changing "drivers" for devices, if that's what they're called.

And specifically, of course, what can do to get my sound chip going?

Thanks a lot!

All modules specifially loaded at boot time are in /etc/modules (it's a text file). They're not all of course because you have to think about dependencies. ie module1 is in /etc/modules but it depends on module2 which is NOT in /etc/modules. Module2 will, however, be loaded automatically by kmod. Modules will also be loaded at runtime automatically if/when required but only if they have been aliased to something. Check out /etc/modules.conf (or conf.modules). From there you can take out anything relating to the alsa modules. This will stop them being loaded automatically when needed or at boot time. Once the drivers are removed the standard i810_audio should be what gets used. A good idea would be to put the line "i810_audio" into /etc/modules. Soundcore and ac97_codec will be loaded automatically as dependencies.

ALSA does work with the SiS7012: I use that chipset on my laptop running Mandrake 9.1 and alsa is fine. Persevere!

You may need to enable acpi to get the sound card to work. If you run sndconfig what does it say?

I had this trouble once.
Texicle's post fixed it for me. Here's the link:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/history/52950

Also, make sure your speakers are plugged in and that audio is turned up by running aumix in a console window.

Hope that fixes it.

okay,

that sounds pretty good. i'll try that when i get home. i'm at work right now. however, i don't think i saw a /etc/modules file last time. i've seen /etc/modules.conf, but it's empty. where are my modules loading from currently? are they all coming from /etc/rc.d/rc.modules? because, for example, the sis900 module is there, but it's commented out with a #, and it's still loading, which is a good thing, by the way, but i just want to know from where in case i ever have to change that. what's the /etc/rc.d directory all about? thanks for all your guys' help so far.

fideli

also, because of the fact that i don't know where my modules are loading from, i don't know how to stop the alsa from loading as well.

ok, i got sound working now. it's great. but because my i810_audio loads before the intel8x0 does, my dmesg is cluttered with the messages:

Intel ICH soundcard not found or device busy
Intel ICH soundcard not found or device busy
Intel ICH soundcard not found or device busy

so it looks like i810 won the race to load the sound chip, so how do i tell Intel ICH to give up? where is it loading from?

I'm not on my Linux box right now (stupid ISP) but I think the /etc/hotplug/blacklist or whatever the file's called is what you want.

Quick question. How did you install alsa? If you installed from source then you MUST have put something into /etc/modules.conf (or conf.modules). If you installed by rpm then uninstall the rpm.

i did not install alsa by myself. it came loaded with my slackware 9.1 so i don't know exactly where it's coming from. i remember running the alsa config program and it put some stuff into the modules.conf. however, even after i removed all the alsa lines from the modules.conf file, the intel8x0 still tries to load.

Comment out (prefix the line with a hash #) the line in your /etc/modules.conf that says

alias sound i810_audio

that's assuming ALSA works for you.

no, the problem is that alsa didn't work for me in the first place, so i PUT the i810_audio line in the modules.conf. NOW i'm trying to stop alsa from trying to load the intel8x0 module

Oh, I never did manage to convince it to do that. I turned the ALSA service off, told it not to start on boot, but every time I deleted the snd-intel8x0 line from my modules.conf something kept bloody putting it back!

I eventually discovered that alsa did in fact work, so I just stopped resisting and let it do what it wanted!

Can't understand why the kernel driver works for you but the alsa driver doesn't. I cannot help you any further, sorry.