Various New Kernel Issues(modules loading, ALSA)
 

Just built a new PC, got it up and running with Slackware 9.1, and compiled a working 2.6.7 kernel for it. However, I have a few issues:

1. Though I configured module autoloading into the kernel, only agpart and ide-scsi load. I have to manually loadthe other modules I need after bootup. Looking at rc.modules, I notice that it is commented out, except for agpart and ide-scsi. Can I just uncomment the lines for the modules I need or is there more involved?

2. After manually loading the proper drivers for my sound card(SB Live 5.1), I tried alsaconf and was greeted with a message saying that it can't find any cards. However, if I go to alsamixeer, the card is there. The sound works with certain things(xmms, xine), but not with others(AIM). I'm very confused.

3. Any other things I ought to watch out for when moving from 2.4 to 2.6? All I've done so far is simply compile the kernel and booted it up.

Thanks for all your help.

1. I guess you're not running hotplug, so the solutions is to uncomment those lines on rc.modules

2. Maybe when compiling the kernel you selected OSS instead of ALSA? The best aproach to get alsa running ok is to select sound support on the kernel without selecting alsa or oss, and then compiling and installing alsa-driver from their page.

3. I can't think of any right now since i moved long ago, but there are different things, i guess you'll ask when u discover them :)

For some reason in Slack 9.1, installing a new kernel messes with ALSA. What I ended up doing was compiling a kernel with ALSA support, and the approprate sound card drivers as modules, then forced it to load the sound card driver module with rc.modules(as apposed to how it normally loads them). It was kind of ghetto, but sound worked.

Happily, however, the problem seems to be fixed in Slackware 10.0.

That worked, I think. I'm having random locks and crashes that I am currently investigating, which may be ALSA related. So, to anyone else having problems with ALSA after going with 2.6.7, try just enabling the generic sound support in the kernel, and just installing ALSA manually.