Help me. ALSA installtion problem
 

i got as far as this command:

./configure --with-cards=via82xx --with-sequencer=yes;make;make install

this is when i get this error:

help? please?

I wouldn't use the 0.5.x driver...
 

...as that version is no longer supported by the ALSA development team.

Is there a reason why you cannot use the 0.9.x driver (and lib, utils, etc.). If the card is not supported by the 0.5.x driver (which is sort of looks like, based on the error message you supplied) there's a better chance of it being supported by the later release.

BTW, did you look at the table of supported cards on the ALSA web site?

Maybe it's just me but I wouldn't string all the commands together like they indicate in the ALSA docs. It can get confusing trying to sort out just which step you were in when any error message is issued.

And kernel version ``0.0.0''? That sure looks odd.

ill try to install the 0.9.x drivers right now. you say not no string commands from ALSAs docs. would you happen to know any other sites that have better documentation for installing ALSA.

one more thing, kernel version 0.0.0. i have very new to linux so i do not know what looks right and what doesnt. so bare with me please. i usually understand things quickly but with linux it just seems complicated =\

ok i installed the 0.9.x alsa drivers and it still doesnt work. i edited the modules.conf file for it and i chmod'd everything correctly. it still says i dont have sound support compiled into my kernel

Having modular sound support and having the ALSA driver compiled and installed are two different things. What do you see when you issue the command:

/sbin/lsmod | grep sound

If it doesn't say something like ``soundcore 6500 6 [snd]'' then you kernel doesn't have modular sound capability. You'll want this. I seem to recall that attempting to use ALSA drivers with the core sound support compiled into the kernel rather than as a module were not too successful (but that was a few years ago; maybe it's different now). Do you see anything in the directory ``/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/sound''? There should be at least ``soundcore.o''. The ALSA build process puts its modules in ``/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/sound''.

BTW, what distribution are you running?

rnturn:

how do i make the kernel have modular sound capability?

i check "/lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/sound" and there is soundcore.o. and I am running Redhat Linux 8.0. where do i go from here?

You have it. Problem is that no one's using it at the moment (that ``0'' in column 3 tells you that no other modules are using soundcore).

Try looking for the modules for your card. What do you see when you issue:

find /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel | grep "snd-"

If you don't see anything , then your modules either didn't compile or they didn't install. If you see a bunch of files matching ``snd-*.o'' returned, then try

/sbin/modprobe snd-via82xx

and post any error messages that come back. If there are none, check the modules loaded using ``lsmod | grep snd''. Hopefully you'll see a bunch of them. If so, try playing some sound file. Just remember that you'll have to fire up a mixer application to raise the volumes from zero; ALSA turns everything off after installation.

Good luck,

Rick

rnturn:
i tried looking in "/lib/modules/2.4.18-24.8.0/kernel/drivers/sound/" but there was nothing there with the prefix "snd-"

did i do something wrong in alsa installation? should i do the installation over again?

The only thing that I see in that directory is `soundcore.o'. Remember, the actual ALSA modules live under ..../kernel/sound.

I'd say `yes' but I can't imagine what could have gone wrong at this point. I have 26 files beginning with `snd-' (you'll probably have a different number when everything's finally working). BTW, issue that find command again but this time use the alsa-driver-0.9.0rc7 directory to begin the search. If some files show up, perhaps the `make install' command is the culprit. Remember to do a `make clean' before you try rerunning `make' otherwise it won't find anything to do.

You sure there weren't any error messages generated during make? It'll normally stop after a compilation error. To be sure, you could try capturing the output using a command like:

command 2>&1 | tee /tmp/command.log

then carefully examine the contents of log file to see if there are any glitches. You may see some warning but often these are just the compiler complaining about coding constructs that are destined to be deprecated and you can normally ignore these. I can't remember ever having seen a make fail due to one of these. If you don't see any ugly messages that begin with ``***Error '' you should be OK.

Hopefully this isn't a dumb questions: Did you do the installation as root?

You might be able to run configure and make as a regular user but installing the modules must be done as root. Check the permissions on /lib/modules and you'll see why.

(Say, don't forget to download and build the library and utils.)

Let me know what you find.

Rick

ok im re-installing alsa for another time and following the directions verbatim. when i do "./configure --with-cards=via82xx -with-sequencer=yes;make;make install" this is what i get:

so many errors that i dont even know what they mean? =\

sound problems on slackware (with alsa)
 

Hello !

I have a AC97 Audio Controller onboard and a via8233.
I have installed alsa drivers, lib, and utils (0.9.0rc8) and I got to the point where I should modprobe snd-via82xx (I have modular soud capability but no ohter module is using soundcore - according to the people in this forum).
Here there are the errors when I did "modprobe snd-via82xx":

bash-2.05a# /sbin/modprobe snd-via82xx
/lib/modules/2.4.18/kernel/sound/acore/snd.o: unresolved symbol _mmx_memcpy
/lib/modules/2.4.18/kernel/sound/acore/snd.o: unresolved symbol rwsem_down_write_failed
/lib/modules/2.4.18/kernel/sound/acore/snd.o: unresolved symbol rwsem_wake
/lib/modules/2.4.18/kernel/sound/acore/snd.o: unresolved symbol rwsem_down_read_failed
/lib/modules/2.4.18/kernel/sound/acore/snd.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.18/kernel/sound/acore/snd.o failed
/lib/modules/2.4.18/kernel/sound/acore/snd.o: insmod snd-via82xx failed

Let's handle the first error first... the rest may go away once that's corrected.You apparently do not have the kernel source package installed. Confirm this by issuing the command:

rpm -qa | grep kern

If you don't see a line similar to

kernel-source-2.4.18-14

in the response to the rpm command, then you do not have the necessary package installed. I forget which CD they're on. You'll have mount each one in turn and cd to where the packages are located to see if it's on that CD. Once you find it just issue:

rpm -ivh <package-filename>

Also, check the symbolic links in /usr/src. The above error message states that it looks for a link named /usr/src/linux. You may only have one named /usr/src/linux-2.4. If so, issue the command

file linux-2.4

and you'll see a response like

linux-2.4: symbolic link to linux-2.4.18-14

then issue the command

ln -s linux-2.4.18-14 linux

(Of course, if your kernel package version is different, use that in the ln command.)

Then try running configure in the ALSA driver directory and see if that initial error doesn't go away.

I'm almost certain that the rest of the errors are due to configure failing. The ALSA instructions are sort of wrong in the way they tell you to install things. Instead of:

./configure --with-cards=via82xx -with-sequencer=yes;make;make install

They should tell you to:

./configure --with-cards=via82xx -with-sequencer=yes && make && make install

so that if an error occurs in one step, you won't automatically proceed to the next step. (Read the bash man page and search for ``&&'' if you want to see how the above works.) The version in the installation instructions will work fine... if you have the system configuration ``just right''. People who don't do a full installation may not have this ideal configuration.

Hope this helps,

Rick

everything seems ok right?
now you say that it says that its looking for "/usr/src/linux". i dont have that dir in src?

there isnt anything in the SOURCES dir.
do i install kernel sources? so complicated and so frustrated. how do i install them?

No. You have multiple kernels installed but if the sources were installed you should have seen a package named ``kernel-source-version''. Also, which of those kernels is actually running at the moment? You can get this using ``uname -r''. The ALSA build looks for that version header file in the include directory of the source tree for the currently running kernel. The ``uname -r'' should return one of the following:

2.4.18-24.8.0
2.4.18-26.8.0
2.4.18-14

Let's say it returned `2.4.18-14' (the one from the initial RH8 installation). If you install the kernel source package -- in the package file kernel-source-2.4.18-14.i386.rpm which should be on the second CD -- and then go back to the ALSA directory, the configure step won't complain about the missing header file. If you have grub or lilo boot selections for the other kernels, and you want to use the ALSA driver when you've booted one of those, you'll have to rebuild the ALSA driver after you've booted each of those kernels. The configure and `make install' steps uses ``uname -r'' to figure out where to find and where to put things during installation.

Any missing symbolic links under /usr/src may be taken care of once you've installed the kernel source package. They're easy to add yourself if need be:

ln -s linux-2/4/18-14 linux-2.4

ln -s linux-2.4.18-14 linux

If you're adding ALSA support for all these kernels, you'd need to redefine these links before you did each ALSA build.
Well... I didn't say that. It's in the error message that configure spit out (see the output you posted just a bit ago). :-) And it's not really a directory but a symbolic link (read the man page for ``ln'' , especially the description of the ``-s'' switch, for more info). Think of them as pointers, sysnonyms, aliases, etc. to other directories and/or files.

If it seems like you're getting a lot of stuff thrown at you, it's because, well, you are. But it's not that bad. Just consider this your trial by fire.

Anyway, let me know how things are going.

Rick

rnturn:

i'd like to thank you for all your help. sound works now. the way you explained it was perfect. all i needed to do was get the kernel-source. i did get it from RHN and followed your instructions. just one more question haha. is mp3 support included in this? if it isnt ill start another thread on it and also mounting fat32 file systems[windows] access from linux.

thank you for all your help Rick.
Im chris by the way =)