alsa startup
 

This should be an easy one, I hope.

I have FC2 and have installed audacity. I know audacity uses the alsa sound system rather than arts, and I have installed alsa. Audacity will only record once the alsa player has been opened, I presume because this causes the alsa drivers/system/whatever to be loaded.

So, how do I load the alsa system without starting the alsa player? Starting the alsa player obviously works, but strikes me as being a rather inept way to get the alsa system running.

Thank you...

There should be an alsasound service. Note that this service's startup does not work if you preload the alsa module with /etc/modules or /etc/modprobe.conf.

Yves.

sorry, no alsasound service, either by command line or in the "services" section of the kicker menu. I don't have a file /etc/modules. The contents of modprobe.conf are as follows:

alias eth0 forcedeth
alias snd-card-0 snd-intel8x0
install snd-intel8x0 /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install snd-intel8x0 && /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/dev/null 2>&1 || :
remove snd-intel8x0 { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore-remove snd-intel8x0
alias usb-controller ehci-hcd
alias usb-controller1 ohci-hcd

none of which i really understand I'm afraid - still new to all this. I do have the alsactl, amixer, asound commands etc. Should I be looking at the /etc/asound.state file contents?? Should I get things set up by running alsaplayer and then use alsactl to store those settings? Will that affect arts and bugger up my sound?

All questions from a confused newbie I'm afraid.

Sorry, I meant /etc/modprobe.preload. Anyway, the point is you don't have the ALSA service. Can you open a terminal window, and execute this ($ stands for your bash prompt, and # stands for root's):
Seeing your /etc/modprobe.conf though, it may be that you don't need an ALSA service, in which case making sure that "snd-intel8x0" (without the quotes) is in your /etc/modprobe.preload would be enough.

Yves.

I think that running 'alsaconf' as root may do all of the work for you. Also check if there is an 'audio' group. If there is, make sure that you are a member of the group.

jschiwal: logged in as root, the system does not recognise the command "alsaconf" - does it need to be "bash alsaconf" or should I be in a specific directory? Also there is not audio group or anything resembling it (sound/alsa/etc)

theYinYeti: "find /etc/rc.d/ -iname "*alsa*" -print" (as root) returns nothing. I don't have a /etc/modprobe.preload file, just modprobe.conf and modprobe.conf.dist

Was I way off the mark in running alsaplayer to get things working, then using "alsactl store" to save the settings that way?

Sorry, I really didn't think this would take more than one reply to get right!

Try creating the /etc/modprobe.preload file.

First of all, alsaconf may not be installed. Second, your paths may not be set right. After su'ing to root, type 'bash -l' so that the login scripts run. I think it is usually installed in either /sbin or /usr/sbin.

theYinYeti: I created an empty file /etc/modprobe.preload with the touch command, made no difference.

jschiwal: su'd to root, ran the login scripts, alsaconf command still not found. Can I download it for fedora from somewhere? I only found an rpm for PLD (never heard of that distro) - will that do?

I also tried my idea of "alsactl store" once I had started alsapayer and audacity would record - didn't help.

I just found a page on freshrmps about having to install a kernel module for alsa to work with fedora - i'll give it a go and post the result.

Try:
rpm -q --whatprovides alsa-conf

for rpm based distro's or use the gui installation program to search for alsa-conf.

example on my suse box:
rpm -q --whatprovides alsa-conf
alsa-1.0.3-37

thanks jschiwal, that command returns " no package provides alsa-conf". I'll try searching for it on the net - in the meantime, if anyone can tell me where to download it for FC2, I'd appreciate it.

I didn't mean creating an empty file. Here I quote myself from a previous post:
So your soundcard module has to be in this file.

Yves.

oops! Sorry yinyeti... Created the file and entered snd-intel8x0 on a line, nothing else. Rebooted and no joy. Still getting the same error:

"Error while opening sound device. Please check the input device settings and the project sample rate. "

After starting alsaplayer, the error disappears and audacity records. Sample rate is always 44100Hz, device settings..?

I suggest you do the following. Open two xterms, and su to root in each. In the first xterm, do: then in the second one, do Then post the content of ~root/ksound.log, and ~root/modprobesound.log

Yves.

thanks for hanging in with me on this one, especially as it's not a critical situation...just mildly irritating and interesting.

the creation of ksound.log hung in the xterm (well, never gave me a new prompt until i hit ctrl-c) but returned the following contents:
Feb 1 20:23:32 Lerebus su(pam_unix)[3786]: session opened for user root by brian(uid
=500)
Feb 1 20:23:50 Lerebus kernel: ACPI: PCI interrupt 0000:00:06.0[A] -> GSI 5 (level,
low) -> IRQ 5
Feb 1 20:23:50 Lerebus kernel: intel8x0_measure_ac97_clock: measured 49462 usecs
Feb 1 20:23:50 Lerebus kernel: intel8x0: clocking to 47483

modprobesound.log is an empty file i'm afraid...