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#1 2003-11-29 10:17:22

scusack
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2003-11-24
Posts: 18

after lots of reading still sound problems

Hi all,

I have a Dell Inspiron 8500, and I am trying to get alsa working, after reading a lot of the messages about sound here and some heavy googling I am still coming up stumped.

I am not really interested in OSS as everybody seems to say that alsa is better. 

So from my reading I assumed that I load the correct snd-* driver which in my case is the intel8x0, then set some permissions in devfsd.conf so everybody can see it.

I modprobed snd-intel8x0 and /dev/snd shows
controlC0..controlC7
pcmC0D0c
pcmC0D0p
pcmC0D1p
timer

I had already added

REGISTER ^snd/*. PERMISSIONS root.users 0600

LOOKUP snd MODLOAD
LOOKUP dsp MODLOAD
LOOKUP mixer MODLOAD
LOOKUP sequencer MODLOAD

to my devfsd.conf file

I run alsamixer and everything looks ok, I turn the volume up I then escape to exit, if I go back in the volumes are all set.

then i run
>aplay endoftheworld
and it says
Playing WAVE 'endoftheworld' : Unsigned 8 bit, Rate 8000 Hz, Mono

but I don't get any sound, after a while I get the command prompt back so I assume that if I had been able to hear it it would have finished by now.

Does anybody have any ideas about how to look for the problem?

Regards, Simon.

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#2 2003-11-29 15:37:20

Xentac
Forum Fellow
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2003-01-17
Posts: 1,797
Website

Re: after lots of reading still sound problems

Two things.  The 0600 in the REGISTER line means that only root user will be able to access the device.  If you made it 0660, then anyone in the users group could access it.

Second, did you unmute the channels?  You can turn up the volume all you like, but if there are two MM's at the top of the channel (in alsamixer) then they're muted.  You gotta hit 'm' to unmute them.


I have discovered that all of mans unhappiness derives from only one source, not being able to sit quietly in a room
- Blaise Pascal

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#3 2003-11-30 22:22:29

scusack
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2003-11-24
Posts: 18

Re: after lots of reading still sound problems

Ah, 0600 would explain why only root could do anything, but I had unmuted.

As for the sound, I think that when the Dell technician came and fixed a problem he did not plug the internal speaker back in.

On a hunch I plugged some extenal speackers into the headphone socket and tried it and success 'aplay endoftheworld' worked!

It is very quiet tho, I had to crank the external speakers all the way up to be able to hear it, when I was testing this via XP I had the speaker volume down at about %25 of what I needed for arch.  Any ideas on this score?

Thanks for the help, Simon.

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#4 2003-11-30 22:43:06

Xentac
Forum Fellow
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2003-01-17
Posts: 1,797
Website

Re: after lots of reading still sound problems

There are two ways to turn up sound (usually).  Master and PCM.  PCM is usually what programs modify but Master is also there.  By cranking up Master then you'll notice it being a lot louder.


I have discovered that all of mans unhappiness derives from only one source, not being able to sit quietly in a room
- Blaise Pascal

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#5 2003-12-01 09:29:45

scusack
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2003-11-24
Posts: 18

Re: after lots of reading still sound problems

Your a genius, thanks for your help, that did it.

Now I just have to get that Dell guy back to plug the internal speaker back in properly and I can listen to music without carting around some externel speakers.

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