Re: Sound-HOWTO docs wrong; what next?

[athos <athos@interlog.com>]

Kent wrote:
KW> I've recompiled my kernel in order to get sound working. Now when I
KW> reboot I can see messages about my sound card, so I went back to the
KW> documentation to see how to test the sound.

I'm no expert (I'm still learning myself), but here're some clues I picked up
from my sound building experience.

KW> I've clued in enough to the various posts that I know there's such
KW> commands as lsmod, insmod, rmmod, and modprobe, and I've tinkered around
KW> with them, but haven't had much luck. The lsmod shows: vmnet, vmmon,
KW> binfmt-aout, vfat, and fat. I've tried to "insmod sb" (guessing that
KW> "sb" means "SoundBlaster") and "insmod sound", but there's "no module
KW> found by that name".

Check that they were copied to the /lib/modules/<kernel-version> tree (either in
sound/ or misc/ ).  The files you'll _probably_ be looking for will be

        sound.o
        soundcore.o
        sb.o

(there may also be a uart and an mpu in there, too, but I don't believe these
are necessary)

if they're not there, try looking in the <kernel-version>/modules directory in
/usr/src (or wherever you've put the source).  Copy them from there to a sound/
directory under /lib/modules/...

Then you need to check conf.modules to see if it can find the sound directory.
Look for a line something like

        path[sound]=/lib/modules/`uname -r`

(It _should_ already be there. But it never hurts to check. If it's not, you
should probably add it to /etc/modutils/paths and do an "update-modules" after
you've checked the next couple of things)

One thing I did notice that was missing from the conf.modules is the line

        alias char-major-14 sound

(In general terms (others: don't flame me, I'm generalizing) it tells the kernel
where to look for the definition of the /dev entries dealing with sound). A
website whose location I've since forgotten used "sb" in place of "sound", but I
haven't found a big difference. If changing /etc/modutils files, put this (duh)
in aliases.

Also ensure that the options for your sb card are correct.  Once again, my
(typical) example is

        options sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=5

Yours may be different (put this in /etc/modutils/modconf).  Then run
update-modules.

This _should_ help.  It worked for me.  I'd like to hear whether this helps.

It's also possible that this isn't the _best_ way to do it.  I'm certainly open
to correction.

KW> I'll continue trying to read what I can about modules in general and
KW> sound in particular, but I'd really appreciate it if anyone could give
KW> me any pointers. (To be honest, I tend to distrust the documentation
KW> since so much of what I've read over the past year isn't quite right in
KW> one way or another.)

Documentation is not as "glorious work" as coding is in the Free Software/Open
Source domain. Especially end-user documentation.  This is one area that any of
us immersing ourselves into the realm should try to lend a hand to.

--
  |   Shawn Sulma, The Rigel Group
  |   mailto:webmaster@rigelgroup.org
_\|/_ http://www.rigelgroup.org/
--
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