I am a newbie so bear with me, I do have 'some' unix and gcc experience tho.

I've recently installed slackware 10.1 on my IBM Thinkpad R32 (1.6Gig P4M) all went well, got sound working with only a few hitches (alsa was trying to use my modem instead of the sound card) everything else worked even the stupid thinkpad button! So I decided i wanted ACPI support, went on the web and read up about it, discovered i needed to rebuild my kernel with it turned on, so i followed the instructions to the letter in slackbook (slackware linux essentials) v.good book by the way, started my new kernel and amazingly ACPI worked! unfortunately no one told me that the default .config file you get when you first run 'make menuconfig' is a mile apart from what is required to get the same kernel that slackware installs (even though i used the bog standard kernel during the install). So when i made my .config file the only thing i changed was the ACPI stuff, as a result i ended up with a kernel without any modules (well at least without the ones i needed).

I have experimented with different builds and have got most things working again now except the sound, i simply cannot find how to build the snd-intel8x0 module, i can't even find a matching .c file in any of the source code.

I've searched these forums and i have found one other person who had a similar problem but they fixed it by downloading a full kernel source tree. I have tried this and as a result i am now using the 2.4.32 kernel but i still cant build this driver, please help !!

One other thing that is bugging me, is whenever i boot a kernel i have built the terminal defaults to 25x80 text mode, how do i get it to boot in an SVGA resolution ? I boot with LILO and vga=773, the original slackware provided kernel boots in SVGA mode no probs.

Cheers (and apologies if i ranted on a bit.)

You have to compile in Framebuffer and VESA support into your custom kernel to use the vga flag in lilo.

Why not upgrade to the 2.6.x kernel? There are several options for Intel sound hardware under Device Drivers > Sound > Alsa > PCI Devices...

Welcome to LQ!

The module is not in 2.4.31 or 2.4.32 kernels. It's also not in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules in Slackware-10.1 or 10.2, where you could uncomment, modprobe, and use it.

Why not compile a 2.6.16 kernel, since you've already done a compile? I wrote a somewhat simple guide in a LQ thread for someone else, and it will work for you.

NB: Do NOT use a 2.4 kernel .config file with 2.6 kernel sources. If you need to reference your 2.4 .config file, print it out. Yes, that will take a lot of paper. I still have the printed version of the first kernel (2.4.21) I customized (18 pages). It was bleeding edge at the time. And I also had an onboard Intel soundchip. There was no support in the kernel, so I just bought a SoundBlaster Live Audigy ES card and used it instead.

There's more than one way to skin a cat. If you need help with your kernel, post back.

Question: How did you originally get your sound working? I think you can if you compile ALSA on your own and modprobe the snd_intel8x0 module, iirc.

snd-intel8x0 as they said above is part of ALSA (www.alsa-project.org). It has been included in the kernel sources from 2.6.X series, they're not on 2.4 kernels. You can use a 2.4 kernel and compile the modules by getting them from their webpage or compile a 2.6 kernel that already has them in their source tree.

You could just use the acpi version of the kernel when you install. bareacpi.i instead of bare.i.

look @ here
/lib/modules/2.4.31/kernel/sound/pci
Ciao

$ lsmod | grep intel8x0
snd-intel8x0 18304 0
snd-ac97-codec 58556 0 [snd-intel8x0]
snd-pcm 54344 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec]
snd 32772 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm snd-timer]
snd-page-alloc 4712 0 [snd-mixer-oss snd-intel8x0 snd-pcm snd-timer snd]

$ uname -r
2.4.31

So if you have this module loaded, run alsaconf, then run alsamixer and unmute sound, then run alsactl store to save your settings. Now try playing some music.

I have this module loaded, but I think the OP has not. I was just replying to the fact people say the 2.4 kernels don't come with that module.

2.4 don't come with it, but they come precompiled in alsa-driver package from Slackware and that's why you've it by default. They can be compiled for 2.4, but they're not on the kernel source tree.

Ok, thanks for the clarification!

Cheers Guys!!

I downloaded the latest Alsa source and built it for my sound card and its all back working cheers.

One question, I understand if your building a new kernel that you would need to re-build your modules even those not included with the kernel, but if i am just making a minor change to my build configuration surely i shouldn't have to re-build my modules that are not a part of the kernel source. I guess my question is, which part of the build process removed my original sound modules ? was it make mrproper or make clean ? and in the future can i rebuild the kernel without removing these modules ?

Cheers, Im off to build VESA and framebuffer support into my kernel, maybe i'll have a go with 2.6 soon.....

For some modules yes, for some - no. Alsa usually works after rebuilding your same kernel with additional modules while nvidia driver should be configured each time after compilation. Make clean removes compiled modules from your build directory but not from /lib/modules/version.