[Glastonbury] soundcard configure

[tim hall]

On Tuesday 15 November 2005 15:07, Tony Sumner was like:
> I have started a new thread because this has got a bit away from the
> mailing list. I hope that's ok; I am not sure what the protocol is.

Actually you just changed the title, but that's good enough for now. I won't 
get confused as to where the conversation started now. :)

> On Nov 14, 2005, Andrew M.A. Cater was like:
> > Don't link the stub to gcc - apt-get install a gcc instead?
>
> I did apt-get install gcc-4.0 and installed something though I don't
> know where it went. No matter; I don't need it for now anyway.
>
> On Nov 14, 2005, tim hall was like:
> > If [Tony] is using kubuntu then surely he would be having problems
> > with artsd?  esd is the GNOME sound daemon.
>
> Yes, ps -ef grep said that artsd was running, but I don't think this is
> the main problem ...

Worth going into kcontrol and disabling it for the time being, just to make 
sure it isn't getting in the way. You can always reenable it later.

> On Nov 14, 2005, tim hall was like:
> > Why do you want to compile ALSA from source when you already have it?
>
> Well no I don't. It's just that I trawled this help from the LVLUG archive
> (Las Vegas!) that suggested I run ./configure and that needed gcc. But
> I don't think that would do anything that alsaconf wouldn't do.
>
> > Do you have alsaconf installed? Try running that.
>
> I installed and ran it. I told it I had a AWE 64, it asked some questions,
> said '1 card configured' and tried to run amixer, which bombed 'no such
> file', probably referring to /dev/dsp.
>
> > http://demudi.agnula.org/wiki/DocumentsFaq#ALSA
>
> This asked me to check permissions on /dev/dsp, etc but I have no /dev/dsp*
> at all. I don't have /proc/asound either.

Ah, this is a problem.

> > http://alsa.opensrc.org/aadebug
>
> I ran the script and here is (the first bit of) the result:
> > Linux murgatroyd.example.com 2.6.12-9-386 #1 Mon Oct 10 13:14:36 BST 2005
> > i686 GNU/Linux
> >
> > Loaded Modules --------------------------------------------
> >
> > Modprobe Conf ---------------------------------------------
> > Warning: module config file does not exist
> > This means any kernel modules will not be auto loaded
> > See your linux distro docs on how to create this file
> >
> > Proc Asound -----------------------------------------------
> > Warning: /proc/asound does not exist
> > This indicates that ALSA is not installed correctly
> > Check various logs in /var/log for a clue as to why
>
> I do not have a file /etc/modules.conf. I do have /etc/modules with a
> list of modules to be loaded and alsa is not in the list. So is alsa
> installed or not? I did 'apt-get install alsa' and it came back with
> 'alsa-base is already the latest version' so I think yes. Looking in the
> logs I found this in dpkg.log

So ALSA is not installed / configured correctly. It's supposed to be compiled 
in to the 2.6 kernels. Hmm. What do you have for /etc/modutils/alsa-base? 
This directory contains the raw materials that compose /etc/modules.conf. 
Note: my information is out of date here, the 2.6 kernels do this 
differently. You could append
snd_sbawe
to the end of /etc/modules if the card fails to auto-configure, but I suspect 
your problem lies elsewhere. The sbawe is a very common card, which is most 
definitely supported.

> > 2005-11-11 17:36:59 status installed alsa-utils 1.0.8-1ubuntu1
> > 2005-11-11 17:36:59 status installed alsa-utils 1.0.8-1ubuntu1
> > 2005-11-11 17:57:58 status installed gstreamer0.8-alsa 0.8.11-0ubuntu5
> > 2005-11-11 18:14:41 status installed alsa-base 1.0.9b-4
> > 2005-11-11 18:14:41 status installed alsa-utils 1.0.9a-4ubuntu5
>
> is that ok?

Dunno, looks a bit like you may have conflicting versions of ALSA installed. I 
may be wrong on this.

> I am totally lost. It is behaving as if I have no soundcard but I have; it
> works fine in Windows. If I want to play a CD or listen to Radio4 I can
> fire up Windows but for several reasons I'd rather not...

The output of 
$ lsmod | grep ^snd
and
$ lspci
might shed some light.
# dpkg-reconfigure alsa
will reconfigure alsa if it is properly installed. If that fails I would 
probably suggest uninstalling and re-installing ALSA. Start by uninstalling 
alsa-1.0.9* and then rerun alsaconf.

> I am getting all this lovely advice and not contributing much.

Don't worry about that. You'll get your turn. ;)
Let us know how you get on.
-- 
cheers,

tim hall
http://glastonburymusic.org.uk/tim