[PlanetCCRMA] Alsa & OSS probs re:Mark Knecht

[Fernando Lopez-Lezcano]

On Mon, 2005-01-10 at 17:17, nigel henry wrote:
> On Monday 10 Jan 2005 11:10 pm, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano wrote:
> > On Mon, 2005-01-10 at 14:48, nigel henry wrote:
> > No other OSS modules found.........
> > What kernel are you running? ("uname -r" to find out).
>
> Kernel is 2.6.10. not your latest release of it. On FC2
> What I don't really understand Fernando is that on boot-up verbose tells me 
> that the Alsa driver is already running. 

If you are refering to the alsasound script then that could be normal.
Kernel modules are autoloaded when they are needed, and apparently
something in your system is loading them before the alsasound script has
a chance to run. Then it will report that alsa was already running
(normal) and load any modules that were not loaded but are configured in
/etc/modprobe.conf. 

> Then when I try Music player Iget an 
> error (Alsa device "default" does not exist). 

This is strange. What device is "Music Player" configured to use? the
message would suggest that alsa is not running, or that its
configuration is broken. 

At that time, before you do anything, what does this report:
  cat /proc/asound/cards
  cat /proc/asound/devices
(that should list available cards and devices on your alsa system)

You should also list which alsa modules (if any) are loaded:
  /sbin/lsmod | grep ^snd-

Are "sound" and "usb_midi" also loaded at this time?

> I stop the Alsa driver with 
> /etc/rc.d/init.d/alsasound stop and then the Music player works.

What do the previous "cats" show at this point?
What alsa modules are still loaded?

> The other thing is losing access to the Alsamixer. I do a /usr/sbin/alsaconf 
> and then get access to the mixer. 

What card do you configure when you do that? You do have an usb card
right? In addition to the Audigy, I mean. Or any other usb peripherial
that can do sound as well as something else?

> I need to unmute (Audigy Analog/Digital 
> Output Jack) because that stops some stuff working. Then, even after storing 
> the mixer settings, when I reboot the box the mixer is not accessable I get 
> an error (no mixer elems found) until I run /usr/sbin/alsaconf again, and 
> obviously the settings are as they were before I unmuted them. I am getting 
> an error regarding restoring the sound setings, but there are so many bits of 
> paper with errors on them that I've started to lose the plot. Sorry. I think 
> I'll have to take a break and a drink and come back to it tomorrow. I'm not 
> going back to XP. Its Linux 99% Evil Empire 1% and that, just for the 
> security updates. I'm not giving up. Nigel.

Are you getting messages on boot from Kudzu saying something about new
hardware being discovered? (that's the hardware configuration utility
that "autodetects" peripherials). 

Another question: what is the content of /etc/modprobe.conf, both after
a reboot, and after you run alsaconf. 

-- Fernando