get hold of and install "devfsd", go into the kernel configuration and look under filesystems and turn it on in there as well. it will make your life a lot easier. it only shows the devices that are available and that the kernel can see. ergo, if you cant see /dev/dsp then you know your sound devices isnt working. its very small so it wont take much room up.

i trust you have two machines, one main machine to do the compiling on and another that is the embedded device? i think i have said this before, but using ALSA, configure it on your main machine, using the kernal that you made for the embedded device (you only need to point the configure at it using --kernel or something). The instead of make install, just copy the .o files (the modules) to the /lib/modules/<kernel>/kernel/sound on your embedded device.

ok as u can tell I can be quite stubborn

But I am now looking into using ALSA (as suggested) and it doesn't seem like such a nightmare to cross compile (as also suggested).

I will update how I get on ...

i didnt say cross-compile it. i said compile it using the --use-kernel=/kernel/on/your/embedded/system and then copy the files to the embedded system, manually. do NOT use the --prefix switch in the configure for alsa.

yeah a mix up with my terminology

I have done this, I suspect wrongly first time around, as when I try to modprobe pcm-snd-oss It fails warning me about circular dependancies (and if I insmod it fails with lots of unresolved symbols *natch*)

When I depmod -a on my embedded system, various unresolved symbols errors on some modules i transferred :-

info.o
io.o
pcm.o
pcm_native.o
pcm_plugin.o
seq_oss.init.o
seq_oss.ioctl.o
seq_oss_midi.o
seq_oss_synth.o
seq_oss_timer.o
seq_timer.o

Going to go off and solve these now...

pcm.o
pcm_native.o
pcm_plugin.o

what are they? how did they get there? pcm == pulse code modulated, which is a sound thing. have you left something on in the kernel? show me what modules you have in your /etc/modules file that are related to the sound.

well i dont know much about the programming aspect of kernels and modules, however I have found that *some* integrated sound cards and even pci cards as well require a second jumper cable from the motherboard to the cd/dvd/rom. it's a simple two pin wire that windows could do without, but some drivers in alsa dont seem to always want to go without. I have an ESS 1869 sound card integrated on a generic northbridge motherboard; and the mobo has a third jumper for headphones that I can listen to my mp3 with but they dont seem to want to play through the normal jumper 1 (audio out)? I dont understand it either. check with your motherboard supplier and find out where that cable is and double check that it is connected. heck it might even be connected to your modem! in this case you'll need to splice a line. but dont take my word for it. you very well could just have a program conflict for all I know. the only person who can make that distinction is you.

That was me copying over some redundant modules from my dev machine (by mistake).

Now I have copied over the correct ones (all the .o files in the /modules/ directory on the compilation machine)

And if I modprobe snd-pcm-oss, it loads, great!

lsmod shows ...

snd-pcm-oss
snd-pcm
snd-page-alloc
snd-timer
snd-mixer-oss
snd



Now to get the sis7019 drivers working with the ALSA OSS/Free emulation

Thanks for your continued help Frustin, and guiding me along the right path...

*edit* The embedded device i am developing for is a half size single board computer, it has a mic in, line in, and line out. I have made myself a suitable wire for the line out (it connect to a 4pin box header).

what directory path exactly have you put the modules in?

/lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/sound

just checking.

ok can u spot any errors (obvious or otherwise...)

modules.conf :-

alias char-major-116 snd
alias sound-slot-0 sis7019
below sis7019 ac97_codec soundcore
alias sound-card-0 sound-slot-0
alias char-major-14 soundcore
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss


then if i modprobe sis7019
modprobe snd-pcm-oss
lsmod reads:-

snd-pcm-oss 36680 0 (unused)
snd-pcm 55712 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-page-alloc 5426 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-timer 13924 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-mixer-oss 11320 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd 29060 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-pcm snd-timer snd-mixer-oss]
sis7019 23312 0 (unused)
soundcore 3396 2 [snd sis7019]
ac97_codec 10216 0 [sis7019]

Ok, I have bolded bits of lsmod i am suspicious about. Any ideas ?

*edit* also the last lines of dmesg are suspicious in that I don't think that ac97_codec is initalising right ?

PCI: Found IRQ 10 for device 00:01.4
ac97_codec: AC97 Audio codec, id: ALG64(Unknown)

and that's it, no mention of sis7019 drivers loading ok ?

dont worry about it. just looking at your editted message.

under sound in the kernel what do you have initialised?

<*> Sound core support
<M> Intel ICH (i8xx), SiS 7012, NVidia nForce Audio or AMD 768/811x
<M> Trident 4dWave DX/NX, SiS 7018 or ALi 5451 PCI Audio Core
< > OSS Sound modules

you dont have those modules installed at boot up do you? only sound core.