Just when I thought everything was working fine...

As soon as I got Slack up and running on this laptop I went through alsaconf and then booted into X and used xmms to verify that I could play a CD. I assume it worked, and went on to do other things. I recently downloaded grip and installed it using checkinstall. During the ./configure script I received the following:

checking cdda_paranoia.h usability... no
checking cdda_paranoia.h presence... yes
configure: WARNING: cdda_paranoia.h: present but cannot be compiled
configure: WARNING: cdda_paranoia.h: check for missing prerequisite headers?
configure: WARNING: cdda_paranoia.h: proceeding with the preprocessor's
result
configure: WARNING: ## ------------------------------------ ##
configure: WARNING: ## Report this to bug-autoconf@gnu.org. ##
configure: WARNING: ## ------------------------------------ ##
checking for cdda_paranoia.h... yes

I assumed that wasn't a critical problem, and continued with the install. I opened grip, and it said it couldn't find anything on /dev/cdrom. Now I go into xmms with a CD in the drive and use the same process as I did before (play directory for /mnt/cdrom), and it doesn't start playing. I hit the start button, and it pops up a dialog that shows /mnt/cdrom with no files in it. I'm not sure the grip thing had anything to do with it, but I can't think of anything else I've done related to sound since I had it working. How can I troubleshoot this? What is making it not work?

Thanks,
Johnathan

Have you got Lame installed? Try ripping tracks with

cdparanoia $TRACK_NUMBER && lame cdda.wav $TRACK_NAME.mp3 && rm -f cdda.wav

change $TRACK_NUMBER for the number of the track on the disk and $TRACK_NAME for a suitable name (no spaces - you can rename it with spaces when it's finished)

Well I'll deal with learning how to rip tracks later, but right now I'd like to know why sound isn't working at all (e.g. I can't even play CDs in xmms).

I take that back, sound works (I can play .wav files with xmms fine), but when I put in the same audio CD that worked before and go into xmms, play directory shows /mnt/cdrom as being empty, and I can't figure out a way to play the CD.

I think you need to mount the CD somewhere and then navigate to wherever you mounted it and then XMMS should be able to play it. I don't know for sure though. I can't do it as I've not enabled support for whatever the filesystem is that CD's use in the Kernel. It was a consious decision, I don't have many CD's and if I did want to here them I'd rip them to mp3's. Or I could use cdparanoia to get them off the cd as .wav's and then play them.

cdparanoia $FIRST-$LAST

I know that you don't need to mount audio CDs since they don't technically have a filesystem. I'm doing the exact same thing as I did before, so I know that process can work (going to /mnt/cdrom under play directory in xmms), but for some reason it's not now.

If I understand correctly you didn't check to see if xmms could play an audio cd before? I'm a little confused by the way you said that you assumed it worked.

If you weren't feeling empirical that day and didn't verify that you could play audio cds, then have you checked the xmms cd audio player plugin and make sure that it was both on, and checked to play digital audio?

I don't know about your specific laptop, but most I've ever messed with have not had an analog cable from the cdrom to the motherboard. Switching the plugin to accept digital audio tripped me up for a while.

Sorry if I posted something you already tried, I was a little confused by your language.

Sorry if I was unclear. I was a little confused myself about what was happening earlier so maybe my other posts didn't make sense. I'll rephrase here:

When I initially got the laptop configured, I put in an audio cd, went into xmms, chose play directory, navigated to /mnt/cdrom, and the cd played fine. Now I do the exact same thing but this time /mnt/cdrom is empty (no files), and when I choose it and hit the play button in xmms it just pops up the same empty box. I'm trying to figure out why it's doing this now, and the only thing I can think of that I did that could have caused it to change was try to install grip. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Johnathan

I don't think Xmms can play CD's. At least, I can't get it to work. Totem did it straight away, well, when I put the CD in the right drive. I like Xmms so I use it as the default for mp3's. Totem is a bit more bloated and can be a bit buggier. Nice visualiser though. Plays DVD's too.

Hmm... ok. It did work at one point for me, but it doesn't now for some reason. I've since ripped all my CDs to .oggs, so I use xmms to play those, but it would still be nice to get it playing CDs without that intermediate step.