No Sound in Linux Mandrake 10.1

[victorsk]

Hello,

I have a very common problem with Mandrake 10.1 Official - I have no sound. I can see the sound driver being assigned in Mandrake system configuration utility but I get no sound. I ran
"lspci" command and I got:
"02:02.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs [SB Live! Value] Input device controller"
I also checked out something called ALSA but I don't have a clue how to use it. Can somebody please help me out please?

Thank you,
Victor.

[fingal]

Yep, a very common problem. A few pointers then ... Assuming ALSA is your sound server - you can check this under your sound settings in KDE - I would open a terminal/console and type 'amixer' (errr... no quotation marks though ). That'll list all the channels assigned to the sound card - some of these might be muted. At least you'll then know which ones.

Again, assuming ALSA is running, type 'alsamixer' to get an ALSA display. There are a lot of of channels on a soundblaster - use the arrow keys to scroll left and right. Turn up any channels which you think you need. If any are turned up too far you might get some feedback.

Hit Esc. to quit out of ALSA. Bear in mind that Kmixer is useful as well... Try jigging around some of the channels there as well. Are any muted? Unmute. Hope this helps.

[victorsk]

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. I ran 'amixer' and I got:
"amixer: Mixer attach default error: No such device" and then I tried 'alsamixer" and I got:
"alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device"
I am not exactly sure how to make ALSA work. At startup it showed, in verbose mode, that Alsa driver was installed but then I am not exactly sure how to install ALSA in its entirety since, apparently, it hasn't been as the commands you mentioned are not working. Any ideas how to remedy this problem?

Thank you,
Victor.

[fingal]

Hi,
Thank you for your reply. I ran 'amixer' and I got:
"amixer: Mixer attach default error: No such device" and then I tried 'alsamixer" and I got:
"alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device"

Tough problem! In all honesty I'm not sure how to fix it, but my approach was to search for your exact error message in Google. Not everyone has easily managed to solve this one, but the ALSA manual suggests:

Run alsamixer as root. If you get
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device
the right device special files in /dev/ might be missing. Run ls /dev/snd/ and make sure there are several entries there. If the directory does not exist, or it is empty, use the ALSA snddevices script or similar to create it and the device special files in it.

From http://alsa.opensrc.org/index.php?page=TroubleShooting

[victorsk]

Hi,

This is great. I very much appreciate the time you took in researching my problem. I followed the link and I think I am on the right track here. Thank you very much!

Vctor.

[fingal]

Hi,

This is great. I very much appreciate the time you took in researching my problem. I followed the link and I think I am on the right track here. Thank you very much!
Vctor.

A pleasure. I learned a lot myself from looking at this