[Lancaster] Re: Lancaster LUG --- Request for Help

[martyn at 22balmoralroad.net]

Hi Ken,

> 1. I've got an Athlon XP 1600+ on a Gigabyte GA-7DXR mobo running SuSE
> v8.0 which allows me to record sound via the on board sound card without
> any problems whatsoever. This leads me to believe that I understand how
> to use 'krecord', 'kmix', etc.  This box is rock solid and is my
> workhorse for internet, office, prog dev and everything else.

What sound card do you have in this machine (which chipset?) and which
drivers/architecture (ALSA/OSS) are you using?

> A 500 MHz K6 II on an AOpen AX59PRO mobo, plus a PCI SoundBlaster Audigy
> sound card.

I have problems with my Live! 5.1 - Lots of settings with ALSA
architecture, nightmare to setup correctly! The alsamixer is a good place
to start (If you are using ALSA). It might be the sound in is not being
routed correctly...?

> An Athlon XP 2200+ on a Gigabyte 7-VA mobo with on board sound.

Again, what is the chipset/currently used sound architecture

> Despite having tried various (repeated) installations (SuSE v8.0, v8.1
> and v8.2), on both of these boxes,

I'm afraid I have no experience with SUSE, although I recently got a 8.1
DVD off a magazine so I might try it soon (ish).

>I cannot get 'krecord' to connect
> with 'kmix'. 'krecord' will run and will go through the motions of
> recording, but doesn't record anything (the signal level meter doesn't
> show anything at all). I can play CDs (via 'kscd') through the sound
> cards OK and 'kmix' seems to work OK.

I don't know exactly what kmix interfaces with, it might only work with
the OSS drivers (at least that seemed to be my experience at one point)
and if the sound cards are setup with ALSA drivers the GUI alsamixer, with
it's thousands of settings might be of more use.

Of course it might be worth checking that this isn't a aRTs problem, do
you use aRTs (KDE sound system)?

Have you tried piping the output into a file then "playing" it back to the
sound cards output?

Failing that XMMS usually has a whole host of plugins avaiable for
recording/playing/accessing sound - it might be worth giving that ago...

> I've set permissions on /dev/dsp0 and /dev/audio to ensure that the user
> has access, but the problem is the same even if I run as 'root'.

I guess this will have been setup by SUSE...

> Clearly there is something in the setup of the first box that I'm
> missing on the other two, but I can't find it.

I guess soundcard differences, possibly at hardware level, Audigy
especially as they have fairly configurable DSP chips on them AFAIK.

> I hesitate to say this, but both boxes will allow me to record sound
> under MS Windows 98, so hardware seems to be OK.

That'll be the bonus of maker written drivers I guess (and probably a
slightly more stablised sound architecture)


> Can someone point me in the right direction? How should I attempt to
> diagnose the problem? Is Andy the guru on this one?

Hope some of this is of help! I know a bit from the trouble I had with my
Live! 5.1, gentoo and a wish for 5.1 passthrough from my DVD player!
Andy's probably played/used sound the most as far as I know though...

> Hope to see you on Wednesday. I'll try to bring the Athlon 2200 box with
> me.

I hope to be down Wednesday as well, I'll bring a (working) Dreamcast with
Linux on it and I have a load of old hardware to donate (just bits at the
momment I hope to get some PCs at some point)!

Martyn