sound card problem : /dev/dsp doesn't exist
 

Hello Everyone, I'm Gzou. A beginner in the world of Linux.

After being praised about the benefints of linux by a few people that i've met, I decided to try it out ! So I downloaded Kubuntu 5.10 for PC (i386) and installed it. Result : WOW ! hey, my computer doesn't crash as much ! I've even almost got an equivalent to all the programs that I used the most in Windows. I was really excited to learn more about Kubuntu and Linux, except that a problem came up :

The sound doesn't work !

When I log onto Kubuntu and the Desktop appears I get this message :

Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No such file or directory)
The sound server will continue, using the null output device.

Hey, that's strange, the sound worked in Windows though. So I went looking on Google a bit and came up on your site where people had similar problems, and a few results came up on this site. So I looked through the threads a bit, tried a few things that they proposed as solutions, yet no results.

Here's what happens when I use lspci, lsmod, and try to get into alsa :

As you can see, there aren't any sound cards listed in pci, no evident sound modules, and alsa says that I don't have any sound cards.

Even after removing and reinstalling alsa with apt-get, it still didn't detect any sound card, and alsaconf doesn't work as root.

My sound card is a Creative Sound Blaster 16-bit (WDM)

So, if anyone knows anything useful, or knows what to do to fix the problem, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks !

P.S. I wasn't too sure if this post should have been in the Hardware section of the Newbie Secion, but since i'm new to linux, and the forum, I put it here.

try
sudo -s
modprobe snd-sbawe;modprobe snd-pcm-oss;
modprobe snd-mixer-oss;modprobe snd-seq-oss

Hello Again (sorry for the delay, I was Indisposed)

Here's the result of the modprobes:

Well, at least the modules for the sound card are there ! Thanks for that ! But lspci still doesn't see my Sound card and Alsa doesn't work aswell. Any Suggestions ?

Try running

and see what that does. Let us know if alsaconf gives you problems.

I tried, alsa-utils was already installed. I tried removing it and reinstalling but nothing changed. when I type alsoconf, bash reports that the command is not found, and alsamixer still says :

Sorry to budge in, but I would really appreciate it if someone knew what the problem is with my sound card.
I'm guessing that since my sound card isn't listed on lspci that it isn't being detected. Any way to force the detection of it ?

I have the exact same problem now, but with an intel based soundcard. I have tried nearly everything to get it to work and then i mean for example:
- upgrading alsa
- upgrading the kernel (to 2.6.16.11)
- loading serveral modules
- reading docs / forums and almost gone crazy (:D)
- been running alsaconf serveral times but it doesnt find my card
- alsamixer doesnt work and i get the same error messagesd as Gzou
- gone to intels website and checked for linux drivers
- gone to asus to check for drivers there

I did get the sound to work in debian with this sound card for some time ago, but now it seems like its just somehow impossible. im been working my ass off to get it to work but just cant. any more solutions ?

It still cant even find my sound card and i get the same error messages as Gzou. it works fine in windows, but windows is not an option. i run debian sarge and since ubuntu is based on debian i guess we kinda have the same problem.

Hi icebyte

After a bit of searching I found out that my sound card is not, PCI-based but an ISA card. That's why it didn't show up in lspci. So what i did was to run

cd /dev
sudo ./MAKEDEV audio

Then loading the sound modules for my card, and typing dmesg after to check that The computer could detect it. After that I was able to play Music CDs Through the KDE CD player (although when I restart the computer It doesn't work anymore)
So Maybe the problem is that your card is ISA based.

Now my problem is that each time I restart the computer the sound doesn<t work anymore and I have to redo the MAKEDEV trick. Anyone know what to do to reslve this problem ?

Hi

Trying at 2.6.16.8 kernel

Thanks for answering. I have tried you makedev trick and it seemed like it now has the modules up, but when i try running alsamixer i get this message "alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device". I load in the modules and it seems to work to load them but i still get no sound and when i run alsaconf it cant fin the card at all.

Trying at 2.6.8-2-686 kernel

I tried you makedev trick with this kernel too and it seems like it got the modules up. When i run alsaconf i doesnt find the card. I try to open the volume manager i get the same message as above which is: "alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device". I here get to load the module "snd-hda-intel" which is the module i think, but when i try to load modules i get the message:

Gzou

How about writing a simple script that executes those commands on startup? For example put the script in rc.local, then they will run at startup.