Hello,

I recently downloaded and installed Mandrake10.0 and I just tried to use CD player. When I entered the CD the software detected it and it begins Playing but there is no sound. I checked the settings and could not see the problem. Could someone suggest what settings are wrong or do I need to install something?

Thanx

Check that sound is enabled in the Control Center, check that the volume is ok, and make sure that you've plugged your speakers into the right socket (don't laugh, it's pretty easy to get the wrong ones, especially if you have one of those new fandangled six channel audio cards... )

Cheers,

mj

Where can I find the control centre?

Is the sound cable from the back of the cdrom plugged into the sound card.

I use a laptop with built in speakers. I think sound is turned on cos I there is some music when mandrake starts up but I can't find the Control Center to check?

Click on the big K start-like button, and look for the Mandrake Control Center... (assuming you're using KDE).

Cheers,

mj

my experience with linux as far as audio cd playing is concerned isn't very good either. since redhat 9 neither kscd nor the gnome cd player plays sound from the cd just because one of the 4 pins of the socket on the onboard sound chipset (i810) is broken (due to some reasons that i can't recall). when all players in windows give amazing sound output. linux won't play for that one twisted pin. a cousin of mine could at the max help me get a right-speaker only sound output. promising to provide authentic digital audio cd is a good thing but forcing the user to stick to it and not making best use of available resources is certainly a no-no.

hi,

if you're using a laptop, there's a very big possibility (almost a certainty?) that there will be no audio cable connected between the CD drive and the sound system. in the case of ms windows, this isn't an issue, because the audio data is transmitted via the IDE interface and digital-analogue conversion is performed using software...

with linux though, the CD player applications in KDE and Gnome have tended to require a physical audio cable, with digital-analogue conversion taking place within the CD drive itself, and the audio piped into a soundcard input..

I believe that the latest KDE (3.3) now features a CD player program that can work in a similar way to Windows.. but mandrake 10 uses KDE 3.2.

all is not lost, however. you can use Xine to playback your CDs, and it can use data transmitted over the IDE cable, so playback will be possible with your laptop.

an alternative might be to consider a more recent distribution - i tried mandrake 10.1, but the default again is KDE 3.2 (i think 3.3 is available as an option..); or, suse 9.2 ships with KDE 3.3 as standard.

do I need to downlad xine, if so is this it?

http://xinehq.de/index.php/releases

Get xine from your installation CD! It is already pre-packaged for Mandrake 10.0, and will install much easier. Just go to the Mandrake COntrol Center/Software Manager / Install, and search for "xine".

hi,

what you'll find now, though, is that when you insert an audio CD, Mandrake will still try to launch either the KDE CD player (KsCD) or Gnome's equivalent (if you're using Gnome..)

If this irritates you, as root, edit /etc/dynamic/audio_cd.script. insert the line 'launch xine -H' just above 'launch kscd' and save. now, when you insert a CD, xine will pop up instead (the -H option hides the video playback window incidentally). you'll still need to press the 'CD' button on the xine interface - I haven't yet managed to get completely automatic playback going (perhaps someone could shed some light on this?).

in fact, it's in the /etc/dynamic directory where you'll fnd the scripts Mandrake uses to launch stuff for you - eg, K3B when you insert a blank CD-R, etc..

xmms is also able to digitally extract audio from the cd you have to selet the option in the audio I/O plugins cdaudio. after that just open /mnt/cdrom with xmms