Re: Re: linux on a vaio (John S. Andersen)

On Tue, 2003-07-29 at 22:43, Indurain wrote:
> >> So I have apci defaulting to off.  From my bootup:
> 
> >don't do that. Edit /etc/lilo.conf and change acpi=off to acpi=on, then
> >run /sbin/lilo and reboot.
> 
> Oh my gosh!  Didn't think that stupid little change would do much for me!  Sound card doesn't lock now!  
> 
> You wouldn't happen  to know how to solve this problem, would you:
> 
> 'couldn't open audio
> Please check that:
> 1. You have the correct output plugin selected
> 2. No other program is blocking the soundcard
> 3. Your soundcard is configured properly'
> 
> Sound mixer KMix loads up a blank screen.
> 
> In Mandrake Control Center 9.1, it says alsa is running.  It also says sound is running.  Do I need to add something to the modules.conf file?
> 
> Thanks a ton,
> 
> Jay

these are a little tougher, sometimes it could be the wrong module
(think driver) loading, sometimes a permissions problem, sometimes
another sound-using program has hung up. Some troubleshooting tips:

The Mandrake control center hardware program doesn't do a good job yet
of showing which driver you're selecting, so try a couple of times and
make sure it's using Alsa instead of OSS.

from a terminal, su - and try to service alsa restart. If it's another
sound-using program, it will complain that PID whatever is holding the
sound device, so kill -9 PID.

Sounds like you're using KDE, so another thing I sometimes have to do
for that environment is jiggle artsd -- KDE control center, sound,
change sound system type from Autodetect to alsa and click apply, then
put it back to autodetect and click apply.

finally run alsamixergui and set the volume levels there, then run kmix
and see if they're ok, then try to alsaplay and artsplay
/usr/share/sounds/phone.wav.

Remember, everything in Unix is a small, single-purpose tool. The kernel
modules interact with the hardware and do nothing else -- if they're
working right, you'll get entries in /dev/sound/. The sound system
(artsd or esd) manages access to the hardware and nothing else -- they
queue up and multiplex sounds, they check permissions, they enable
network access.
-- 
Jack Coates
Monkeynoodle: A Scientific Venture...