Re: ALSA is miserable. (Help?)
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On Fri, 10 Sep 1999, Jonathan Markevich wrote:
> There's no code in there to compile, that I can see. I got excited when I
> saw /dev/snd but it doesn't seem to mean anything. There's no real
> installation docs either... it seems like it's all API reference. I could
> personally care less about the API at this point...
>
> What do I need to do to get sound working? Buy something? Reinstall?
> Red Hat? SuSE?
Go to www.alsa-project.org for the real docs. In short, though, here's
what I did to get alsa working with my Trident 4D Wave card (a nice
card by a very Free Software-friendly company). Some of the specifics
will be different for your card, of course.
You need to have basic sound support compiled into your kernel if you're
running 2.2.x. I'm not sure what you should do if you're running 2.0 or
2.1. Check the web site. You also might have to initialize your
soundcard with something like isapnp. I don't have to do that to my PCI
based PnP card, so you might not either. The web site will give you info
here.
Go to ftp://ftp.eecs.umich.edu/pub/linux/alsa/ and get the current sources
from driver, lib, and utils.
Uncompress the sources and run ./configure;make;sudo make install in the
source directories (driver, lib, and utils, in that order).
After doing make install in the driver directory, you'll notice that a
bunch of new kernel modules are available (modprobe -l will show this).
You need to insert the modules that correspond with your soundcard. In my
case, I do the following:
modprobe snd-card-trid4dwave
modprobe snd-mixer-oss
modprobe snd-pcm1-oss
The two oss modules are for compatibility with Open Sound System apps.
THe first module is the card-specific one. I'm not sure which one you
need, since I don't have your card. Check with the docs on the ALSA web
site.
OK, now you should have the modules installed. Now you get to wrestle
with the amixer program to turn your sound on! I'm not sure if the syntax
is the same for all cards or not, but here's what I do to activate my
Trident card:
amixer eset 'Master Switch',0,Switch2 on
amixer eset 'Master Volume',0,Volume1 100,100
amixer eset 'CD Switch',0,Switch2 on
amixer eset 'CD Volume',0,Volume1 100,100
amixer eset 'PCM Switch',0,Switch2 on
amixer eset 'PCM Volume',0,Volume1 100,100
amixer contents will show you the current settings for your card, and will
give you an idea of what you need to turn on to get sound to come out.
That's basically how I did it. I suggest you put the amixer commands into
a script and run it at boot time or something so you don't need to try
remembering them.
HTH. Good luck.
noah
PGP public key available at
http://lynx.dac.neu.edu/home/httpd/n/nmeyerha/mail.html
or by 'finger -l frodo@ccs.neu.edu'
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