hi !


I REALIZE..
-----------
..that I should search the forum before posting my questions. At times, it's just too time consuming to find something which I want. Sorry.


SOUND PROBLEM
-------------
I've installed RH9.0 on my dell notebook.
Dual boot install : Windows XP and RH9

When I put in an audio CD, the software ( yikes, can't remember the name..think it's noatun) detects the cd and the files but there is no audio output !
What plugin do I need ?
Should I install the latest xmms ?
Do I need an ALSA driver ?

Note : All other OS related events play just fine.

Thanks

shanlz

From your Note, it sounds like your sound is set up properly.

Your issue is likely a hardware one... there's a CD audio cable that's supposed to connect a CD drive to the motherboard for the playing of CD audio. AFAIK, no Windows apps use this interface to play CDs (presumably they used to years ago), and so people have got into the way of thinking that it's not important and a lot of computers come without it. However, this means that any application wanting to use the CD playing interface to play CDs is out of luck, which includes most of the Linux CD players.

I'm not sure whether noatun can help you, but XMMS does have a way around this - go to Options -> Preferences, select the Audio CD Player from Input plugins and Configure it; then select 'Digital audio extraction' as the Play mode. This will extract the tracks over IDE and convert back into analog, and will work (this is presumably what Windows does, and probably supplies as a low-level API so no-one bothers using anything else). Other players may have this preference if you hunt around for it, but my general feeling is that most don't.

An alternative solution is to obtain an audio CD cable (they're usually grey, about 4-5mm in diameter, smooth and round, with flat 4-pin heads) and connect it from your main optical drive to the socket on your motherboard. Even if you're not that confident with opening up your PC, it's not a tricky operation at all (about as difficult as plugging something into an electrical socket) and means that you can use CD audio as it was originally intended to be used, and with any apps that support CD playing.

HTH,
Andrzej