Sound card issues in openSuse 11.0 and 11.1 X86_64 versions
 

I have been trying to get sound on my system running openSuse 64 bit with KDE for some time now. I have it running on a separate partition on a hard drive and with grub can boot into either Suse or Windows Vista. My sound card is an older Audigy 2 value card, which I'm using mostly because there's not enough room in my case for a longer card.
I upgraded to 11.1 last week but nothing different happened with the sound. I went through the configuration tutorial on the Suse website (http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AudioTroubleshooting) with no success. I looked at the ALSA website and upgraded those drivers, etc. Nothing makes a difference: I don't get any sound, no test sounds, nothing. Everything else seems to work with my install. I can run video without sound, I can burn DVDs with no problem, but no sound.
I have been wondering if this is related to 64 bit version drivers not being mature, but I don't really know if this is the case.
Any recommendations you have would be welcome.

Hi
There seems to be an issue with sound with 11.0/1 - whether 32 or 64 bit. When logging on, something appears to be grabbing the sound card and refusing to let go!

Try typing into a terminal (as root); rcalsasound restart.

If the sound then bursts into life, that's what it is. It's a bit tiresome but, until someone figures out a workaround, you'll need to do it each time you log in.

HTH
B.

Thanks for your response. I tried what you suggested but didn't get any sound. I imagine I can't be the only one with this problem. It's kind of a deal breaker to using openSUSE isn't it?

It's hard to come up with a helpful answer with so little information. Did you check the log files? Did you try to start the driver in debug mode?

I even got the dreadful creative x-fi driver running under 11.0. Totally underwhelming quality, but better than nothing.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my question. I would love to submit the information you suggest, but I'm pretty new to Linux. Can you walk me through the steps?
I'd also be interested in trying the driver you suggest. Where do I find it and how can I install it? I have used Yast to install software so I'm familiar with that procedure. Again, thanks for any help you can give me.

You actually should be fine with the ALSA drivers. I only used the x-fi driver as an example that sometimes a little persistence is required :)

A good place to look is /var/log. I'm not at my linux box right now, but there might be an alsa log file. Otherwise check the messages log file for anything sound related. You can use the "dmesg" command to check what has happened during boot time.

It might actually be something simple, i.e. the driver is not started. Go to /etc/rc.d and start alsa manually with the script located there. As I said, I'm not near my linux box, so I can't be as specific as I would like. It should be something like './alsasound start'.

I realize that you are new to linux, but this might actually be a good opportunity to gain some understanding on how things work under linux. Free up some time, grab a coffee and start digging. It can be frustrating at times, but it feels good once you get it running. At least that's how it works for me (I'm currently struggling with openldap).

I've got the same problem with sound an openSUSE 11.1 x86_64. I've googled the whole day but nothing works :(. Here I post my alsa-info.sh result for more details.
I'll appreciate any helps.
Thanks in advance.

I've just installed and logged into KDE 3.5, went to 'Configure Desktop' - 'Sound and Multimedia' - 'Sound System', On the General tab, enabled the sound system, checked 'Run with the highest possible priority' and the 'Auto-suspend' boxes. Made sure that the audio device was ALSA (Hardware tab) and saved it.

Rebooted and logged back into KDE 4 - and all is now working fine.......?

B.

Lauer:
I just had some time to try your suggestions about restarting the Alsa drivers and checking the log files. To my amazement, I got sound. Thanks so much for the suggestions.
Bugrem:
Your last post was less clear to me. What made you drop back to KDE 3.5? I presumed your own system was running adequately. I'm aware that there are issues with KDE 4 of course. Is there a difference in the configuration utilities?
I wondered if you (or anyone) can suggest a good book about using Linux commands. I was reminded of the old days of DOS commands before Windows, and obviously I'm just realizing something most of you have known for a while.
Thanks for your help and the time you took. Much appreciated.

Not on paper.

It isn't a book, but this is useful.

http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/linuxcommand.org/

Welcome to the linux party.

Same problem here, using Opensuse 11.1 x86 32bit
 

Same problem on my opensuse 11.1 x86 32bit, that I downloaded from the main site. I found this lines in my system log:
Feb 14 09:52:09 wildswede pulseaudio[3164]: pid.c: Stale PID file, overwriting.
Feb 14 09:52:10 wildswede pulseaudio[3164]: alsa-util.c: Error opening PCM device hw:0: Device or resource busy
Feb 14 09:52:10 wildswede pulseaudio[3164]: module.c: Failed to load module "module-alsa-sink" (argument: "device_id=0 sink_name=alsa_output.pci_10de_6a_sound_card_0_alsa_playback_0 tsched=1"): initialization failed.

For me seems like the pulseaudio is the one breaking the sound system.

I have all the updates from opensuse 11.1 repositories (update, oss and non-oss).

Any ideas?

mbrager
I use KDE 4 quite a bit. The KDE 3.5 sound setup has a few differences. The button "Enable Audio" is one. In my first post I said about restarting ALSA, and having to do it each time I logged on. After setting the sound up in 3.5, I no longer have to do anything in KDE 4 - it just works.

HTH
B.

Can you specify the steps to log in kde 3.5 within 4.1? I'm a little confuse by your actions. It will be nice if I can do that to.

Thanks in advance.

thorkelljarl
Thanks for the link. It looks like a great tutorial, perfect for me. Lots of tips and tricks. Thanks again.

Thank you for the thanks.

Here are two other links you might find useful.

http://www.linux.org/lessons/beginner/toc.html

http://tldp.org/index.html

Useful advice, that's what Vikings are for.