Gnome, totem, gstreamer alsa setup

[BinarySpike]

Basically, Totem doesn't play sound, gnome makes no sound that I can hear, gstreamer isn't working. However Firefox, VLC, and mpg123 work just fine.

I had to recompile my kernel with alsa and intel HD support.

I also emerged gnome before I did that (that could be the cause)

What are your suggestions?

[Kieren]

Have you installed support for the files you are trying to play? Linux wont play a lot of media files out of the box as they require proprietory software

[BinarySpike]

Have you installed support for the files you are trying to play? Linux wont play a lot of media files out of the box as they require proprietory software

a wave file? (aka .wav)

Totem looks like it's playing, it does the whole visulizer.

OT:
gnome is just making me angry, I can't figure out how to "correctly" install software.

Anything I emerge (like vlc) doesn't show up in gnome automatically, I have to make a launcher, goto each profile that needs it and add the launcher, etc. etc.

If it wasn't for my unix background on mac I would have no clue how to do half this stuff.

[Kieren]

It can be tricky getting used to Linux, but that would be the same for someone going from using Linux their whole life to using another operating system.

The easiest way to install software is to use your package manager. There should be one in your launcher, but I use KDE so I don't know where it would be. It will probably be labelled "Install software" or something along those lines. You won't need to download anything you want to install from a website as the package manager takes care of everything for you.

I've never tried to play a wave file since switching over to Linux but from what I've just read you need to install the gstreamer0.8-audiofile package.

[gruven]

It can be tricky getting used to Linux, but that would be the same for someone going from using Linux their whole life to using another operating system.

The easiest way to install software is to use your package manager. There should be one in your launcher, but I use KDE so I don't know where it would be. It will probably be labelled "Install software" or something along those lines. You won't need to download anything you want to install from a website as the package manager takes care of everything for you.

I've never tried to play a wave file since switching over to Linux but from what I've just read you need to install the gstreamer0.8-audiofile package.

It looks to me like he is using Gentoo (portage being the package manager) and Gentoo does not hold your hand for ANYTHING. There is no default graphical package manager. Also, gstreamer0.8 is outdated. I believe gstreamer is using 0.10.20 now.

It sounds like you haven't set up your use flags correctly to get the sound you want. You said you emerged gnome, but did you enable the alsa, esd, or possibly the pulseaudio use flags?

Gentoo is all about use flags, and that is the main customization option for it. It is all about choice and doing it yourself. You said you had a background in Unix, so this shouldn't be new to you. It isn't any harder than any other linux, except for the fact that Gentoo does NOTHING automatically for you.

I don't know what you are doing wrong, but 99% of the programs I emerge show up in my gnome menu. Maybe you can logout and log back in and they will be there? Sometimes it takes a few minutes for it to show up, but it shows up.

I really want to help here, but you have to start accepting the fact that this is Gentoo, and it isn't going to do anything for you, you will have to do it ALL.

I actually just finished a complete reinstall of Gentoo and will help you any way I can, but I always save my config files and just copy them over. I will provide you with whatever you need.

First, though, to help with your problem, we will need to see your /etc/make.conf and check out the use flags, because if you haven't enabled the functionality, then it won't be available.

[BinarySpike]

It looks to me like he is using Gentoo (portage being the package manager) and Gentoo does not hold your hand for ANYTHING. There is no default graphical package manager. Also, gstreamer0.8 is outdated. I believe gstreamer is using 0.10.20 now.

You are correct, I should have stated I was using gentoo.

It sounds like you haven't set up your use flags correctly to get the sound you want. You said you emerged gnome, but did you enable the alsa, esd, or possibly the pulseaudio use flags?

That's what I was looking for, I had no idea what ESD was (I googled it and searched for it on the gentoo-wiki a couple days ago)

And from what I could tell PulseAudio was something similar to portaudio or
ffmpeg.

Gentoo is all about use flags, and that is the main customization option for it. It is all about choice and doing it yourself. You said you had a background in Unix, so this shouldn't be new to you. It isn't any harder than any other linux, except for the fact that Gentoo does NOTHING automatically for you.

I understand this, but I could not find documentation on it.

I don't know what you are doing wrong, but 99% of the programs I emerge show up in my gnome menu. Maybe you can logout and log back in and they will be there? Sometimes it takes a few minutes for it to show up, but it shows up.

For some reason root has problems, I setup a demo account (for the business fair we had this morning) and Compiz-fusion manager and Emerald manager both showed up in the setup/preferences section.

(And when I used my FreeNX client, games that don't show up period, showed up... very strange but a FreeNX thing probably)

I really want to help here, but you have to start accepting the fact that this is Gentoo, and it isn't going to do anything for you, you will have to do it ALL.

I have, I just couldn't find any documentation, resources, articles, or forum posts about advanced features of gnome in gentoo. Heck the handbook doesn't even install ALSA as a use flag, however gnome wouldn't compile for me without it.

I actually just finished a complete reinstall of Gentoo and will help you any way I can, but I always save my config files and just copy them over. I will provide you with whatever you need.

I believe you already have, when I get my server back I will try adding ESD and PulseAudio to my make.conf

First, though, to help with your problem, we will need to see your /etc/make.conf and check out the use flags, because if you haven't enabled the functionality, then it won't be available.

The only sound related thing I added was alsa. And I added the modules in my kernel *after* I had installed gnome.


Finally, I did get an e-mail for your post and it contained your first draft, looks like you edited it
And about that, I have been bragging some about my unix ability. I know my way around a shell, be it bash or tcsh. I have been looking for a really long time for a "do it yourself" linux and gentoo is exactly that, however, portage/emerge is like, "Hey, we'll install stupid libcurl for you, you don't have to know anything about G++ bugs on your system, we take care of that" type of thing.

(yes I installed libcurl on another machine and g++ went crazy and it was because it had a bug... I was 3 releases behind =-P)

So like I think, "hey, I want postfix" and 20 minutes later it's installed and configured on my gentoo linux.

Anyway, my problem was I couldn't find any documentation on my audio problem. All the forums I came across were basically hardware or driver problems. I thought it was gstreamers problem, as it's not "detecting" my alsa output thingy. I wasn't sure what to add, and you just told me, so I'll add gstreamer-audio, esd, and pulseaudio and see what happens. thanks for your help!

PS, I can't seem to figure out how to like, update all packages. I know how to do "emerge --update gnome" but that only updates gnome... I had to add the jpeg flag and update gnome so it would open pictures and put it on the desktop. And it would be nice to make sure all 100% of my packages are up to date... but I guess I can google that, I haven't had time with this business fair and all.

[gruven]

No need to google how to update your system, you can always type 'man emerge' into a shell and it will give you more than enough options to try out.

This gets your system updated:

# emerge --sync
# emerge -avuDN world

-a is for ask
-v is for verbose
-u is for update
-D is for Deep
-N is for New-Use

As for documentation on Use flags, here are a couple of OFFICAL links in the handbook for them:
USE flags ? Gentoo Linux Documentation
Installing the Gentoo Base System ? Gentoo Linux Documentation

Granted that is the amd64 handbook, it is the same in the x86 handbook.

Here is another listing of Gentoo Documentation taken from the front page (http://www.gentoo.org
Gentoo Linux -- Gentoo Documentation Resources

All of that is accessible from the front page.

Alsa is in the handbook, it doesn't explain what alsa is, but it does have the use flag enabled in the example (Code Listing 2.6 here:Installing the Gentoo Base System ? Gentoo Linux Documentation).

Portage installs certain things for you because they are dependencies. They must be installed for the original application to work or were opted-in by USE flags that you set.

If you want something that has no package management, try LFS (Linux From Scratch) and you can do your own dependency checking.

And really, no offense to this board because it is great, but you could probably had all of these questions answered on the official gentoo forums in about 1/4 of the time or just by doing searches there. Gentoo is the best documented Linux distro out there, and a lot of other distro's refer to Gentoo documentation for how-to's.

Gentoo assumes you have knowledge of Linux and what you need to have a working desktop and/or server.

Yes, I edited my post because I felt what I said at the time was inappropriate, but saying I have a strong Unix background is about the same as a Windows guru coming to Linux saying, I have been using DOS for 50 years! It may be command line, but it is different. You still have to re-learn a lot of commands and where everything is. There are different programs, policies, and licenses in Linux. There is little standardization in Linux so it could change at any moment. Every distro is different in certain ways, so there are always new things to learn. Also, this is a linux site, and most of us know our way around a shell. I have been using linux for as long as I can remember, and I learn something new every single day.

I really didn't mean to be so rude, I just want to help. If you need anything, just ask.

[BinarySpike]

No need to google how to update your system, you can always type 'man emerge' into a shell and it will give you more than enough options to try out.

This gets your system updated:

# emerge --sync
# emerge -avuDN world

-a is for ask
-v is for verbose
-u is for update
-D is for Deep
-N is for New-Use

As for documentation on Use flags, here are a couple of OFFICAL links in the handbook for them:
USE flags ? Gentoo Linux Documentation
Installing the Gentoo Base System ? Gentoo Linux Documentation

Granted that is the amd64 handbook, it is the same in the x86 handbook.

Here is another listing of Gentoo Documentation taken from the front page (Gentoo Linux -- Gentoo Linux News
Gentoo Linux -- Gentoo Documentation Resources

All of that is accessible from the front page.

Alsa is in the handbook, it doesn't explain what alsa is, but it does have the use flag enabled in the example (Code Listing 2.6 here:Installing the Gentoo Base System ? Gentoo Linux Documentation).

Portage installs certain things for you because they are dependencies. They must be installed for the original application to work or were opted-in by USE flags that you set.

If you want something that has no package management, try LFS (Linux From Scratch) and you can do your own dependency checking.

And really, no offense to this board because it is great, but you could probably had all of these questions answered on the official gentoo forums in about 1/4 of the time or just by doing searches there. Gentoo is the best documented Linux distro out there, and a lot of other distro's refer to Gentoo documentation for how-to's.

Gentoo assumes you have knowledge of Linux and what you need to have a working desktop and/or server.

Yes, I edited my post because I felt what I said at the time was inappropriate, but saying I have a strong Unix background is about the same as a Windows guru coming to Linux saying, I have been using DOS for 50 years! It may be command line, but it is different. You still have to re-learn a lot of commands and where everything is. There are different programs, policies, and licenses in Linux. There is little standardization in Linux so it could change at any moment. Every distro is different in certain ways, so there are always new things to learn. Also, this is a linux site, and most of us know our way around a shell. I have been using linux for as long as I can remember, and I learn something new every single day.

I really didn't mean to be so rude, I just want to help. If you need anything, just ask.

I wasn't offended at all, you have basically been the most helpful person I've talked to so far about gentoo. Sometimes you have to be rude to get the point across online. Especially with me =-P

Thank you so much for your help gruven.