KDE Soundserver not starting in Gentoo

lostlyre · 09-07-2005, 02:04 PM

Just got Gentoo and KDE 3.4 up and running.
I compiled ALSA into the kernel, and the Intel PCM/AC97 stuff as modules (I have a Gigabyte GA K8NS 939 board). Alsaconf seems to detect my card just fine; alsamixer works 'correctly' as well.

When I click on KDE's Sound System portion of the control panel, I get this error:
"Unable to start the sound server to retrieve possible sound I/O methods. Only automatic detection will be available."

I suspected some permissions problem maybe with the sound device:

Code:

ls -l
total 0
crw-rw-rw-  1 root audio 116,  0 Sep  7 14:38 controlC0
crw-rw-rw-  1 root audio 116, 24 Sep  7 14:38 pcmC0D0c
crw-rw-rw-  1 root audio 116, 16 Sep  7 14:38 pcmC0D0p
crw-rw-rw-  1 root audio 116, 25 Sep  7 14:38 pcmC0D1c
crw-rw-rw-  1 root audio 116, 18 Sep  7 14:38 pcmC0D2p
crw-rw-rw-  1 root audio 116, 33 Sep  7 14:38 timer

My user is in users, wheel, and audio.

Looking at my process list I can't see anything related to sound. I searched for KDE sound server and found something that talked about 'artsd'. Is this the kde sound server? Or is it literally ALSA?

Can someone give me some ideas on what is going on with this? The last time I had this problem it was that the server couldn't access the sound device. Now it seems like it's not even running. I emerged this KDE 3.4 in Gentoo. Used the latest gentoo sources. Thanks.

lostlyre · 09-07-2005, 02:46 PM

when launching alsaconf, I get this line three times:

Code:

modinfo: could not find module snd
modinfo: could not find module snd
modinfo: could not find module snd

It detects my card just fine though, "intel8x0 nVidia Corporation nForce3 250Gb AC'97Controller"

When finishing up no errors occur, just sweet, sweet [ OK ] 's.

Code:

lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
snd_intel8x0           32128  0
snd_ac97_codec         85392  1 snd_intel8x0
snd_pcm                88840  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer              22024  1 snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc          9480  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
skge                   35600  0

dracolich · 09-07-2005, 03:36 PM

I had a similar problem once when I first started using KDE. The solution for me was to turn off artsd in the sound config. Tell KDE to use alsa

lostlyre · 09-07-2005, 04:00 PM

The error happens when I actually go to the sound control panel. Artsd isn't listed anywhere on it. Under "Select the audio device" I have Autodetect only. No Alsa, no OSS. I just tried reinstalling alsa (following the instructions on the gentoo wiki) and that seemed to work out. I'm not quite sure what I could be missing...

lostlyre · 09-07-2005, 04:06 PM

Sound works with Alsaplayer just fine. I think there is something missing from KDE.

lostlyre · 09-07-2005, 04:44 PM

Found it! XMMS-KDE package was not installed. Emerging it allowed the sound server to start, and ALSA showed up in the hardware tab of the Sound System section of the KDE Control Panel. Dunno why emerge kde didn't include that. Thanks~