Alsa setup on Toshiba

[Bill Moseley <moseley@hank.org>]

I'm trying to get sound working on my Toshiba laptop running 2.4.18-bf2.4-xfs.

I've got sound working on my desktop, but I'm not sure how I did it.  I
think I just kept installing things until it started working ;).  I'd much
rather install just what is needed.  But frankly, I don't really understand
linux sound very well -- I'm not sure when one actually needs to use ALSA
or OSS vs. the available modules built with the kernel.

The point of using Debian for me is to understand how the parts fit
together, so I'm wondering if someone can help clear things up.  One
problem is that I've been reading HOWTOs and various other docs that seem
to be conflicting and also are from different dates.

So...

lspci shows:

  00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: Yamaha Corporation YMF-754 
                                                  [DS-1E Audio Controller]

My kernel would seem to support this.  I can run modconf and see an entry:

  ac97_codec        - Yamaha YMF7xx PCI audio (native mode)

Selecting causes modconf to install that plus soundcore.  But still no luck
with sound (although I only tried running xmms).  I didn't try too hard
with that module because /usr/src/linux/Documentation/sound/README.ymfsb says:

 This code enables you to use your YMF724[A-F], YMF740[A-C], YMF744, YMF754
 cards. When enabled, your card acts as "SoundBlaster Pro" compatible card.
 It can only play 22.05kHz / 8bit / Stereo samples, control external MIDI
 port.
 If you want to use your card as recent "16-bit" card, you should use
 Alsa or OSS/Linux driver. Of course you can write native PCI driver for
 your cards :)

Ok, so first I'm 100% sure that applies to my card.  Seems like it does.
Second, where I get confused is about what is required to install ALSA.  I
assume I need to install alsa-modules, but I don't see one for my kernel.
I see

  http://packages.debian.org/unstable/sound/alsa-modules-2.4.18-386.html

but I don't understand if that applies to my 2.4.18-bf2.4-xfs kernel.

(BTW -- how does apt decide what string to match when adding kernel
modules?  Is this an issue when building my own kernel, even if from a
kernel-source package?)


-- 
Bill Moseley
mailto:moseley@hank.org


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