Re: Sound

[Hubert Chan <hackerhue@crosswinds.net>]

>>>>> "Ross" == Ross Boylan <RossBoylan@stanfordalumni.org> writes:

    Ross> I've been trying to get some sound out of my Linux system, and am
    Ross> pretty baffled.  I gather there are several different ways to do it,
    Ross> and would like to know if there is a preferred one.  I have an ISA
    Ross> AWE-64 soundblaster on a 2.2.17 kernel, AMD K6-2, potato system with
    Ross> some woody enhancements.  I'm running GNOME-Helix.

    Ross> 2) I had decided (based on it's own description?  or the fact that it
    Ross> seemed to be more loadable than the alternatives?  it's been awhile)
    Ross> that the Alsa system was the way to go.  However, there are various
    Ross> pieces, and their interrelations are not clear to me (base, library,
    Ross> modules, drivers, utililties, ...).  There didn't seem to be a "task"
    Ross> or a good package (I had hoped the utilities might do it) which will
    Ross> pull everything in.

I'm using alsa.  It's working great for me.  The packages you'll need are:
alsa-base, alsa-utils (for woody, or alsautils in potato), alsaconf.  If you're
running GNOME, you probably want esound-alsa and libesd0-alsa too.

    Ross> The modules that are there are for a much earlier version of the
    Ross> kernel than potato uses, and there doesn't seem to be anything for
    Ross> the current one.  Joey H asked about this a few weeks ago.  My
    Ross> interpretation of the response was that alsa was packaged so you had
    Ross> to get the source and build from it.

In my package list, I've got alsa-modules-2.2.17 and alsa-modules-2.2.17-ide
(I'm using woody) which AFAIK is the kernel version that potato uses.  In any
event, building your own kernel and modules isn't that hard if you really need
to.  Just use kernel-package.  It'll just take some time.

    Ross> Also, I would like to know a simple test to see if sound is working.

The simplest is probably to just get a sound player, and try playing a sound
(there are a bunch of wav files in the gnome-audio package).  Or try running a
mixer (alsamixer, if you settle on using alsa, should be fine).  IIRC, if your
sound card isn't configured properly, the mixer should exit with an error.

    Ross> I'm hoping there's an analogy to, for example, exim.  There are lots
    Ross> of mail transports, but there's one that's encouraged and (sort of)
    Ross> easy to set up.  So I'd appreciate any pointers.  By the way, the
    Ross> hardware emits sounds on other OS's, so I know everything is hooked
    Ross> up.

The problem, AFAIK, is that OSS/Lite (i.e. the default kernel modules) and alsa
don't all support the same cards, so the "recommended way" depends on what
sound card you have.  IMHO, alsa is the better choice for the cards supported
by both.

Hubert

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