Alsa configuration problems in Debian

[cmuller]

I've spend a good part of the past few days trying to get sound
working in Debian Sarge 2.6.8-2 with Alsa, to no avail.

As I understand it, Alsa comes installed in the 2.6. kernel, and so no
special installation should be necessary. When I
run "alsaconf", it correctly finds my SB Audigy card, to which it
applies the emu10k1 module, and subsequently modifies
/etc/modprobe.d/sound and /etc/modprobe.conf, including snd-emu10k1,
reporting successful configuration. But still no sound. Lsmod gives this:

xps8250:/home/chuck# lsmod
Module Size Used by
snd_emu10k1 80776 0
snd_rawmidi 23204 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_pcm_oss 48168 0
snd_mixer_oss 16640 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 85384 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer 23300 1 snd_pcm
snd_seq_device 7944 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi
snd_ac97_codec 59268 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_page_alloc 11144 2 snd_emu10k1,snd_pcm
snd_util_mem 4608 1 snd_emu10k1
snd_hwdep 9092 1 snd_emu10k1
snd 50660 10
snd_emu10k1,snd_rawmidi,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss, snd_pcm,snd_timer,sn
d_seq_device,snd_ac97_codec,snd_util_mem,snd_hwdep
soundcore 9824 1 snd

As I understand it, Alex eventually resolved the problem in figuring
out that Alsa was conflicting with OSS, which was being loaded on boot. He
disableed this by changing a file name. However, when I do
dmesg, I see no indication of OSS being loaded, so I am not sure if
this is the problem.

In any case, I'm still not getting sound, and I wonder if anyone can
point me in a helpful direction. Everything that I have turned up
googling has been old stuff, long before the 2.6 kernel.

Chuck

[alain_]

Do you have sound when you are root?
And is your master volume raised?

[cmuller]

Two questions that I'm not sure how to readily answer.

> Do you have sound when you are root?

I am not sure what is the best way to test this. I tried running Xine and Noatun as root, opening up an mpg file, but there was no sound.

> And is your master volume raised?

I don't know where the setting is for this. I am using KDE and looked under Control Center >> Sound, and didn't find anything.

[alain_]

try alsamixer

[cmuller]

Alsamixer shows me this, which I would guess means that I'm supposed to have sound?


┌────[AlsaMixer v1.0.9a (Press Escape to quit)]─────┐
│ Card: Sound Blaster Audigy2 │
│ Chip: SigmaTel STAC9721/23 │
│ View: [Playback] Capture All │
│ Item: Master │
│ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ ┌──┐ │
│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ │
│ │▒▒│ │ │ │ │ >
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ >
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ >
│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │▒▒│ │
│ └──┘ ┌──┐ └──┘ └──┘ ┌──┐ │
│ │MM│ │MM│ │
│ └──┘ └──┘ │
│ 100<>100 50<>50 50<>50 │
│ < Master > Tone Bass Treble 3D Contr │

[St. Joe]

I don't know where the setting is for this. I am using KDE and looked under Control Center >> Sound, and didn't find anything.

Much easier to use the kmix program.
It should be installed by default.

Just goto the KDE start menu and choose 'Run Command'.
Type in kmix.

An speaker icon should appear in your main panel.
Right-click to show and adjust settings.

My guess is that you just need to either unmute a setting
or tick/untick a switch.

[DoctorDan]

http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...mation.en.html
section 5.2.3 may help you...

[cmuller]

Much easier to use the kmix program.
It should be installed by default.

Just goto the KDE start menu and choose 'Run Command'.
Type in kmix.

An speaker icon should appear in your main panel.
Right-click to show and adjust settings.

My guess is that you just need to either unmute a setting
or tick/untick a switch.

This did it.

Thanks!

[St. Joe]

This did it.

Thanks!

If you happen to read back in this thread, it could be helpful to the next person if you were able to mention which setting(s) you corrected in order to get sound working.

[cmuller]

Actually, I'm not sure exactly which unmute operation did the trick, because I simply went ahead and unticked all of the buttons that were blacked out in kmix.

In terms of offering advice for others who might have Debian/Alsa problems, I should also mention that prior to posting this query, I also downloaded alsa-utils and ran alsaconf, which located and configured my card. That may have been half the problem, at least.

Encouraged by this success, I went ahead and tried to get the sound working on my Sharp Mebius laptop, which has Sid installed, and has never made a noise. In this case, however, it was even simpler, since all I needed to do was

apt-get install alsa alsa-utils

and then run alsaconf, and sound came out fine.