No sound in Linux...

[x0lution]

I have a Diamond MX300 (Aureal Vortex2) soundcard. I downloaded & installed the drivers for it from aureal.sourceforge.net (version 1.1.2), but can only get sound as root. I tried 'chmod 666 /dev/dsp', but still no luck. I'm using Debian 2.2r3 and kernel 2.4.5. If anyone has any idea on what might be causing this, their help would be appreciated.

PS-
I probably should mention that I'm using XMMS to test the sound, since there's not really anything else installed. Thanks for any help.

 

[Chaotic42]

Are you using Esound? Do you have the output plugins configured correctly?

Try cat /dev/hda > /dev/audio.

Do you hear anything?

 

[LordKevii]

add the user to the audio group?

 

[Chaotic42]

<< add the user to the audio group? >>



Heh, yep, that's important too. That messed me up pretty bad when I first
started messing with sound!

 

[x0lution]

Alright, I did 'adduser chrisj audio' (that's the/my username) and it said 'user chrisj added to group audio' (or something like that)... but still no luck. Does is matter if the user already exists?

 

[Chaotic42]

You have to relogin

 

[kingink]

or send a hup for the device to reread its config.

 

[x0lution]

Alright, relogged in, but still no go...
how do i do that, kingink?

 

[Schlocemus]

Oh boy, I hate getting my aureal card to work in linux after every install.

Okay, so basically you need to head on over to sourceforge's site on aureal (just do a search on their site). Then get their drivers, untar, ./configure, make &amp;&amp; su -c 'make install'. IF you get 'unresolved symbols' while installing, then you will need to hack the kernel to enable soundcore NOT as a module. Best place to check for hacking the kernel source is always the Kernel HOWTO (available in many places). Basically, once you get in, make sure that all of the &quot;Sound&quot; has an &quot;*&quot; next to it and not an &quot;M&quot;. That should do it! Hope this helps, keep me informed.

-David

 

[x0lution]

Sound works fine, but only as root... (thus the kernel is setup right and all of that good stuff). But for some odd reason (I would assume permissions) the sound won't work for non-root users.

 

[Schlocemus]

Let me think about this for a little bit, there is obviously some logical reason

-David

P.S. x0lution: It would be helpful if you just turned on PMs so I could message you the solution .... it will come to me...

 

[Schlocemus]

Okay, what you have to do is as root:

chmod 777 /dev/dsp*

After that you should be all set

 

[x0lution]

yeah, a guy in IRC told me that just before i read your post. it works now, thanks to everyone who helped with it...

now help me with my new problem: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=32&amp;threadid=477646

/me has lots of problems.

Again, thanks.

 

[x0lution]

Alright, scratch that... it doesn't work now, not even as root! I swear that no more than 12 hours ago it was working, now nothing.

debian:/dev# ls -l dsp*
crwxrwxrwx 1 root audio 14, 3 Apr 14 19:44 dsp
crwxrwxrwx 1 root audio 14, 19 Apr 14 19:44 dsp1
crwxrwxrwx 1 root audio 14, 35 Apr 14 19:44 dsp2
crwxrwxrwx 1 root audio 14, 51 Apr 14 19:44 dsp3
debian:/dev# ls -l audio*
crwxrwxrwx 1 root audio 14, 4 Apr 14 19:44 audio
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 20 Apr 14 19:44 audio1
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 36 Apr 14 19:44 audio2
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 52 Apr 14 19:44 audio3
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 7 Apr 14 19:44 audioctl
debian:/dev# ls -l mixer*
crwxrwxrwx 1 root audio 14, 0 Apr 14 19:44 mixer
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 16 Apr 14 19:44 mixer1
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 32 Apr 14 19:44 mixer2
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 48 Apr 14 19:44 mixer3


That's what I get at a term, and XMMS gives me this when I try to play a file (as root!)-
Couldn't open audio
Please check that:
1. You have the correct output plugin selected
2. No other programs is blocking the soundcard
3. Your soundcard is properly configured

Since it won't even work as root now, do you think it's a permissions thing (I would guess not if root won't work).

Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[Schlocemus]

Did you reboot?

How about you print out the contents of your &quot;ps -ef&quot; here (or if you are not comfortable, you can edit out any personal programs). Sometiems you might have to kill the sound daemon or esound because it tries to take up too many channels to the audio card. I think that this happened to me once...I'm still thinking about it though, and I'll keep you informed.

 

[x0lution]

i've finally figured out what it is: the computer wasn't loading the modules (au8830) at startup. For the time being the sound will work if i do 'insmod au8830' each time... how can i get it to auto insert the module?

 

[Schlocemus]

Try adding the line to /etc/rc.d/rc.local

That file loads everytime you boot.