How Do I Get Sound Working?

[sburtchin]

I recently installed SuSE 10.0. There was some problem recognizing the soundcard during the installation. The sound is built into the mobo. It is an ES1869 from ESS Technologies. My Windows 2000 says there is an ES1869 Control Interface that uses I/O Range 0-268-026F, and an ES1869 PNP Audio Drive that uses I/O Ranges 0220-022F, 0388-038B & 0330-0331, with DMA's 01 & 00, and with Interrupt Request 05.

What do I have to do to get my sound to work? I am a Linus newbie, so please be specific - Thanks.

[gogalthorp]

Go into Yast - Harware - Sound

and see if you can configure it there.

[sburtchin]

YaST2 Sound Configuration says no sound card found and asks to probe for old devices. So I probe for all of them and it finds three: "Not configured ESS1869 Audio Drive", "Not configured ES1688 rev 11", and "Not configured Sound Blaster Pro". I tried all three of them, and each time I click the Edit button the YaST2 Sound Configuration dialog dissappears. What do I try next?

[gogalthorp]

YaST2 Sound Configuration says no sound card found and asks to probe for old devices. So I probe for all of them and it finds three: "Not configured ESS1869 Audio Drive", "Not configured ES1688 rev 11", and "Not configured Sound Blaster Pro". I tried all three of them, and each time I click the Edit button the YaST2 Sound Configuration dialog dissappears. What do I try next?

That is odd. I assume that you do not have a Sound Blaster intalled

What is the make of the motherboard? The chip set seems to have confused the Probe. I have no ideas on how to handle that. Maybe some one else might have had some experince. Sorry

[sburtchin]

There is no sound card installed.

I have a Compaq Deskpro EN, 350MHz Pentium II, 82371AB/EB PCI to ISA Bridge, 82443BX processor to AGP controller, 82443BX Processor to PCI bridge, and ES1869 sound chip. Is any other info needed?

[oldcpu]

It looks to me like your sound device is supported by alsa:
http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc...hnology#matrix

Did you try going to packman and install the latest version of alsa?
http://packman.links2linux.org/package/alsa/14033

You may need to reboot after updating your alsa.

[sburtchin]

I searched for "alsa" in YaST software management and found 14 alsa packages, a few of which were already installed. I checked them all and installed all of them (alsa 1.0.9-23.2 and 13 others). I don't think this had any effect.

Then I followed your links and ran modinfo soundcore. This shows:

linux:/usr/src/alsa # modinfo soundcore
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.13-15.15-default/kernel/sound/soundcore.ko
description: Core sound module
author: Alan Cox
license: GPL
alias: char-major-14-*
vermagic: 2.6.13-15.15-default 586 REGPARM gcc-4.0
supported: yes
depends:
srcversion: A4DED138106C0A5140A74BE
linux:/usr/src/alsa #

What does this mean?

Then I downloaded the alsa files for SuSE 10.0 from the Packman site:
alsa-1.0.13-0.pm.0.i586.rpm
alsa-1.0.13-0.pm.0.src.rpm
alsa-devel-1.0.13-0.pm.0.i586.rpm
alsa-docs-1.0.13-0.pm.0.i586.rpm
What do I do with RPM files?

Do I really need the latest version of alsa? There is nothing new or cutting edge about my system. I have a 1998 mobo.

From the alsa site I found some instructions:

Quick Install
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In a shell type these commands:

Make a directory to store the alsa source code in.

cd /usr/src
mkdir alsa
cd alsa
cp /downloads/alsa-* .

Now unzip and install the alsa-driver package

bunzip2 alsa-driver-xxx
tar -xf alsa-driver-xxx
cd alsa-driver-xxx
./configure --with-cards=es18xx --with-sequencer=yes;make;make install

NB. If you are using drivers before 0.9.4 then you need to run

./snddevices

If you use devfs then you should not run the snddevices script

The snddevices script sets the permissions for the devices it creates to root. You should

chmod a+rw /dev/dsp /dev/mixer /dev/sequencer /dev/midi

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Now insert the modules into the kernel.

modprobe snd-es18xx;modprobe snd-pcm-oss;modprobe snd-mixer-oss;modprobe snd-seq-oss

NB. For drivers older than 0.9.0beta11 use:

modprobe snd-card-es18xx

Now adjust your soundcards volume levels.
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I didn't do any of this stuff yet because I have some questions. Is it assumed that I should do all this as root? Where it says "es18xx" should I substitute "es1869"? I have no "/downloads" directory. Where do I get the alsa driver package? How do I know if I use "devfs"? If I don't run the "snddevices" script should I do the "chmod" suggested? Do I need to insert the modules into the kernel?

Where it says I have to create a configuration file in my personal directory, each user has to do this for himself?

Then I ran alsaconf. It played a test song. I was able to adjust the volume with alsamixer. However, the Kmix applet on my panel still has a red X and I can't configure it. Nothing has changed when I try to configure sound in YaST, and I still can't play an MPEG file with kaffeine. What do I do next? Thanks for helping.

[oldcpu]

Then I ran alsaconf. It played a test song. I was able to adjust the volume with alsamixer..

Well congratulations. You have sound.

However, the Kmix applet on my panel still has a red X and I can't configure it. Nothing has changed when I try to configure sound in YaST, and I still can't play an MPEG file with kaffeine. What do I do next? Thanks for helping

I don't use alsaconf myself, as I am always concerned it can have side affects (such as affecting the YaST sound test, and maybe affecting kmix). But I have read of cases written by users who believe running alsaconf is the only way to get sound on their pc.

Anyway, its likely your kaffine MPEG or MP3 playback capability is another problem. If you go to the kaffeine web site, you will read that kaffeine uses the xine sound backend (engine).
http://kaffeine.sourceforge.net/

If you surf some more, you will read that the version of xine packaged by Novell/SuSE is crippled for most audio and video formats. Hence you need to upgrade your Novell/SuSE packaged xine, with the one packaged by Packman. You should also install some more codecs (such as w32codec-all, also packaged by Packman).

You can also get a better packaged version of kaffeine from Packman.

Packman is here:
http://packman.links2linux.org/
Use the quick search in the upper left to find xine, codec, and kaffeine.

Also, I recommend you read this about formats that Novell/SuSE do not provide:
http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_Formats/10.0

I am also thinking you may not understand many basics / fundamentals of SuSE linux (please excuse me if I am incorrect). In which case this may be a good read:
http://en.opensuse.org/Concepts

And finally, note that in two posts I recommended you go to the alsa site, and later to the kaffeine site. When an application doesn't work, in Linux it is often useful to go to the application site (kaffeine for example) and read up on it. When a device doesn't work, it is often useful in Linux to go to the device driver's site, and read up on it (in this case alsa). For the examples in this post, is just as easy to post and have someone tell you the answer, but IMHO it will not be like that for every problem you encounter.

Good luck!