how do i know if its OSS or ALSA?
 

hi, from my /var/log/dmsg, it seems my mdk box loads both OSS and ALSA at start, but how do i know which one of those is supporting my sound card?

or how do i know, if my sound card is using ALSA or OSS?

thanks :)

May be you can take a look at your modules.conf.

Check /dev/sound. If you have a bunch of files there, you're using ALSA. If you have /dev/dsp0, you either have OSS or OSS emulation.

Also, if you check the output of lsmod for things beginning with snd, those also indicate that ALSA is installed. If you see things beginning with snd and ending with oss, you definitely have ALSA and OSS emulation.

thanks for ur advise zoombie, when i look at my lsmod, i see these:



snd-seq-oss 32000 0
snd-seq-midi-event 6080 0 [snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq 42544 2 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-pcm-oss 43652 0
snd-mixer-oss 14200 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-ymfpci 48320 0
snd-pcm 79588 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-ymfpci]
gameport 3268 0 [snd-ymfpci]
snd-mpu401-uart 4704 0 [snd-ymfpci]
snd-rawmidi 17760 0 [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-page-alloc 9044 0 [snd-ymfpci snd-pcm]
snd-ac97-codec 45720 0 [snd-ymfpci]
snd-opl3-lib 8004 0 [snd-ymfpci]
snd-timer 18436 0 [snd-seq snd-pcm snd-opl3-lib]
snd-seq-device 5832 0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq snd-rawmidi snd-opl3-lib]
snd-hwdep 6304 0 [snd-opl3-lib]
snd 41380 0 [snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-ymfpci snd-pcm snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-ac97-codec snd-opl3-lib snd-timer snd-seq-device snd-hwdep]
soundcore 6340 0 [snd]


so that sounds like i do have alsa right? but at the same time, there's few items are ending with oss, so i assume i have alsa and oss emulation?

under my /dev/sound, i have these:
adsp audio dsp mixer sequencer sequencer2

p.s: the reason i ask this is because when i install slack 9.1, it doesn't recongize any of my sound driver, and i don't know what to do, because modprobe fails. so i was hoping whatever is reconigzed (and working) under mdk, should be able to recoigze in slack right?

oh yea, not only installing slack 9.1 makes my sound go away, when compile newer kernel from kernel.org (like 2.4.24) also makes my sound disappear. so now i'm trying to understand if my sound is running base on alsa or oss, so that when i'm install slack or upgrade newer kernel again. i'll be able to prepare and know what i gotta do to get my sound back.


thank you

If upgrading your kernel takes away your sound, that probably means you're not compiling in modules to support it. How you do that depends on the kernel you're using. If it's 2.4.x, you can just check that your card is enabled under sound modules for OSS, but you need to install and configure ALSA if you want that. ALSA is part of the 2.6 series, so just enable ALSA support for your card, as well as OSS emulation, and you should have your sound just as it is now. If you post what kernel series and sound system you want, I can give you more detailed install instructions.

the following 2 situation will cause me experience lost of sound:

1) upgrade kernel to 2.4.24 from 2.4.19-10mdk (learned the hard way, mdk kernel is a bit diff then the kernel from kernel.org heheh)

2) install slack 9.1, built in kernel 2.4.22 gives error msg : ALSA fail, can't find modules, etc.. (even if try probemode, still won't work)
oh...beside, during installation, there's so many diff kernel for me to pick, i don't even know which is the right one to pick heheh.


finally, would u plz walk me through if the quility of the sound is any diff compare to ALSA to OSS? on mdk 9.2, i'm running ALSA, and it seems my sound is not as pretty as mdk 9.0 (which was running OSS)

or its simply my config problem?
thanks for ur time zoombie :)