Problems with ALSA in Kernel 2.6.3
 

Hmmm... This seems like a hardware problem, but I think it goes here because I had sound before I changed kernels.

Anyways. I've successfully compiled and installed Kernel 2.6.3 with the ALSA modules, but when I try to load the module snd-cmi8330 (because that's my sound card) with the module options, it gives me this error message:

FATAL: Error inserting snd_cmi8330 (/lib/modules/2.6.3/kernel/sound/isa/snd-cmi8330.ko): No such device

I know my kernel module is there, and I ran the MAKEDEV.snd script in the source directory, but it still can't find the device it is looking for. Does anyone know if I forgot to do anything else because I got the sound to work before I changed Kernels

Any help at all will be appreciated.

Did you built support into the kernel? You would not need to load the module then. If you need a module, the new file is modprobe.conf and not module.conf. Other than those tips, you are beyond my meager skills:)

you have installed module-init-tools and removed modutils right? also how are you trying to load the module, modprobe or insmod? why not just compile them into the kernel, since you most likely will always be using your sound anyway?

I tried to compile sound support and the ALSA drivers into the kernel directly, but when I tried that before, it gave me a message similar to this during startup and sound still wouldn't work:

ALSA
Searching for sound cards
No Devices Found

Also, I use modprobe to insert modules into the kernel. Ummm...Do I need to install module-init-tools and uninstall modutils? I'm not really sure if I need to or not.

"Do I need to install module-init-tools and uninstall modutils?"

yes. you do.

Well, I installed version 3.0 of module-init-tools and tried loading the module again using modprobe.

modprobe snd-cmi8330 sbport=0x220 sbirq=5 sbdma8=1 sbdma16=5 wssport=0x530 wssirq=11 wssdma=0

It still gave me this message

FATAL: Error inserting snd_cmi8330 (/lib/modules/2.6.4/kernel/sound/isa/snd-cmi8330.ko): No such device

Hmmm...I'll figure this out eventually, but if it complains that there is no such device, what would be the best action to fix this problem?

I've also tried out the ALSA on 2.6.3 kernel, and had problem with bad sound output.
I use a Creative labs PCI64 soundcard, which uses the ES1370 chipset.

Under 2.4.x it works great under OSS.
Then I installed 2.6.3 and tried the ALSA driver with OSS emulation, which loaded ok.
Sound played but it got crackly and distorted, especially when volume increased in a given sound. This was in xmms and mplayer using OSS output.

So I compiled using the deprecated OSS instead. That was better but I still had a slight distortion, which led me to think that it's not really ALSA being the problem.
Also when the CPU was very high (like over 95%) the sound would get better with less distortion.

I suspect I set some kernel option wrong somewhere else. If someone has a clue I'd be thankful for a hint.

cheers
bareego

nm