Linux sound problem? this one is driving me crazy!

robisc

Platinum Member
Oct 13, 1999
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I have played with trying to get sound working on my new laptop running Suse 8 for weeks now, and here is what I have got too regarding getting the sound working, now when I try and play an MP3 I get the error message from XMMS that either it "couldn't open audio, please check that the correct output plug in is selected, no other programs are blocking the soundcard and that your audiocard is configured properly". OK so I go to the YAST module to configure the soundcard, the soundcards that are available are the AC97 audio controller, I click this one and then configure, I get the options that the sound card AC97 audio controller will be configured as the second sound card (snd-card-1) with the options for either:

1. Quick automatic setup
2. Normal Setup
3. Advanced setup with possibility to change options

I check the normal setup and click next, then I get "an error occurred during the installation of AC97 audio controller the kernel module snd-via686 for sound support could not be loaded. This can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRG parameters" My only option at this point it to click abort, Then the crazy thing is XMMS will now play my audio file until I either quit the application or log out/in. What should I do besides leave the system running all the time with XMMS open?
 

robisc

Platinum Member
Oct 13, 1999
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No I haven't tried it yet, I have tried Alsaconf though, I will try sndconfig next
 

knappster

Junior Member
Jul 24, 2002
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you're best bet? goto Linux Docs...it's a great site and you should probably be able to find a tutorial or something along those lines that helps you...
 

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
12,074
3,024
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Two alternatives since ALSA doesn't seem to work correctly:

1. Don't use ALSA and use the kernel OSS drivers instead (assuming they exist). You'll have to find documentation on how to do this.

2. Get the latest ALSA drivers from ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/tiwai

I have the ubiquitous SB Live! sound card, and I have to admit SuSE's sound support for it has never been as smooth as I would like.
 

Electrode

Diamond Member
May 4, 2001
6,063
2
81
You people sure know how to leave out the obvious:

sudo chmod 666 /dev/dsp* /dev/audio* /dev/mixer*

Virtually all distros come with the sound devices set in such a way that only root can make some noise. Simply adding yourself to the audio group (which the devices are owned by) doesn't seem to work.

Hope this helps.
 

robisc

Platinum Member
Oct 13, 1999
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Electrode I ran these coomand as root in a terminal and got no errors or anything back but the sound still doesn't work until I try and run the soundcard configuration under YAST2. Any other suggestions?
 

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
12,074
3,024
136
robisc,

Did you try my suggestion? Here's a short SDB doc on #2

Also, a general doc that relates to #1.

On SuSE systems, users are automatically added to the audio group. They have adequate group permissions to use sound devices, so Electrode's suggestion doesn't apply.

If you purchased a SuSE retail box, you can try dealing with official support (try email) but I'm not sure how helpful it'll be. There's also the SuSE linux-e mailing list.
 

robisc

Platinum Member
Oct 13, 1999
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manly I did try just as the Suse site showed to Install the packages with means of the following commands as root:

rpm -Uhv alsa.rpm
rpm -Uhv --force alsa-driver.rpm


I get the error message "error: alsa.rpm does not appear to be a RPM package.
 

EmperorRob

Senior member
Mar 12, 2001
968
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Is XMMS the only sound problem you're having? If so what desktop are you running? Gnome uses a daemon called "esound" for its sound effects which is the default output plug-in for XMMS. KDE uses "arts" which also has a n output plug-in for XMMS.
 

robisc

Platinum Member
Oct 13, 1999
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Yes XMMS is pretty much the only one I can get to work at all, when I just click a file (mp3) it will try and play through Konqueror but the file won't actually play. I am running KDE 3.
 

robisc

Platinum Member
Oct 13, 1999
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manly thx for the link, I downloaded and ran the script and got the message that this is already installed and the system still does what it was doing.