Re: Some ALSA apps stopped working [SOLVED]

[Chris Lale <chrislale@untrammelled.co.uk>]

Florian Kulzer wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 29, 2007 at 12:39:48 +0100, Chris Lale wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
>> Both machines have Etch up to date.
>>
>> The laptop has /dev/dsp, the affected desktop does not. Perhaps this device is
>> needed by alsa for the affected applications? I tried to create the device with
>>
>> 	# cd /dev; ./MAKEDEV -v sound
>>
>> but the command created the devices in /dev/.static/dev/ because udev is active.
>> Both machines have udev. Is there another way to create /dev/dsp?
> 
> # file /dev/dsp
> /dev/dsp: ERROR: cannot open `/dev/dsp' (No such file or directory)
> 
> # modprobe snd_pcm_oss
> 
> # file /dev/dsp
> /dev/dsp: character special (14/3)
> 

Well, knock me down with a feather! Everything works. :)

I'd done all this:
	# modprobe snd_pcm_oss
	# modprobe snd_mixer_oss
	# modprobe snd_sec_oss
but I could only get realplayer to work with the aoss wrapper ("aoss realplay").
It would not work directly or with the kernelspace emulation.

I logged out and went away to rest my brain. When I logged in again, I checked
for /dev/dsp and it was there! I ran realplayer and it worked. I purged alsa-oss
and it still worked.

I expect the logout/login did the trick.
	
Nigel Henry wrote:

> Why you've lost them though, is a bit of a mystery. I'd thought perhaps some
> kernel related thing, if your using a later kernel on your PC than on the
> laptop, or have rolled your own for the PC, and have missed something out
> when running makemenuconfig.
>

I have a bog-standard installation with kernel 2.6.18-4-486. It seems that the
snd_pcm_oss module is in the linux-headers package so it must be built into the
kernel.

I have been playing with qemu recently. I wonder whether using the -soundhw
option might have caused a problem with /dev/dsp. I just tried this but /dev/dsp
is still there. So, its a mystery how the problem arose.

Many thanks Nigel and Florian.


-- 
Chris.