Sound Card Woes (SiS card again)

[Calum]

neither.
i found that the answer to all my problems is simply to run aumix, then run kmix, and both times remember to turn up all the volumes, and i think save the settings.
I am not sure what this actually does, but it creates the right block device or something, one or both of the apps creates the right symlink and so on to make it all happen, and for /dev/dsp to be recognised as the block device for sound.

that's a guess, so if that sounds like bullshit... it is.

Also, i haven't had any problems with sound in mandrake 9.0, only with 8.0 and 8.2...

[Crunchy(Cracked)Butter]

I'd just like to point out that i have the exact same sound card for my laptop but i installed Suse 8.1 and it works, it did for 7.3 as well last year.

Suse really have put the effort in with SiS products, they even fixed the niggles i had with the video card in version 7.3, all fixed in 8.1.

[Master of Reality]

well, well, well. I havent got sound working yet, but i did find the module for the sound card was already on my computer. I did modprobe sis7012 and now the module is loaded (when i did "lsmod" it shows "soundcore" now), but there still isnt any sound. I did "chmod 666" /dev/dsp and /dev/mixer. When i start KDE it says "cant open /dev/dsp (no such device) will use nul output".
What do i have to do next?

[ October 27, 2002: Message edited by: The Master of Reality / Bob ]

[mobrien_12]

When using KDE you do NOT use /dev/dsp.  

/dev/dsp can only listen to one program at a time.  

KDE uses the aRts sound daemon.  This daemon talks to /dev/dsp.  While it is active, NOTHING else can talk to /dev/dsp.  Instead, you have your programs talk to the sound daemon, which can accept multiple inputs and mix them together before piping the output to /dev/dsp.

All KDE programs are automatically set up to use aRts.  

For XMMS, make sure the aRts output plugin is selected.  For command line programs which normally talk to /dev/dsp, run them with the artsdsp command.  For example

artsdsp mpg123 somemp3file.mp3

With my Caldera OpenLinux 3.1 system (KDE 2.2), KDM automatically changes the ownership of the sound devices to the current user, and resets the permissions, so chmoding the  sound device files is pointless.  I don't know if other systems do this as well or not.

[Master of Reality]

when i start KDE it gives me the message:

arts cannot open /dev/dsp (no such device)
sound will continue using the null output device

[Calum]

that's the exact problem i was having. you know what i found? run aumix, then save settings (i think) then run kmix, and save settings, remembering to unmute and turn everything up in both apps, then you might actually need to restart, i found, or maybe there's a way to kickstart the sound without restarting but i don't know it.

That's exactly the problem i got, and that's exactly how i fixed it.

[Master of Reality]

there is no aumix in slackware... that i could find.

[Calum]

slackware, hmm, i think it's a GNOME app, and i don't know what it does, but i seem to remember void main posted some command line stuff to create /dev/dsp and he said it would need to be chmodded so a normal user could use it, are any of those the issue here?
if not, then i am of no more help i am afraid!  

[Master of Reality]

/dev/dsp is there and its chmodded to 666 which is what its supposed to be.

[Master of Reality]

I got it to work (in redhat... for now) but its static(y)  when i play things. Anyway to solve this?

[ October 28, 2002: Message edited by: The Master of Reality / Bob ]

[voidmain]

Maybe you have a cat in your computer case? Better let it out before it dies...

[Master of Reality]

artsd was causing it. I turned it off and the static stopped.

[Calum]

quote:Originally posted by void main:
Maybe you have a cat in your computer case? Better let it out before it dies...

sage advice, you always come up with the best solutions!  

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by The Master of Reality / Bob:
artsd was causing it. I turned it off and the static stopped.

I figured the problem to be kittensd.