While we're on the topic of cards, though mine is not, Linux doesn't seem to recognize my sound "card". It is a Yamaha OPL-3-SA3 3D audio with an OPL-ML-4 MIDI wavetable. I haven't found drivers and I can't find anything that resembles the Windows "System Properties" thing. It uses all the same IRQs\DMAs\etc as a normal sound card so I can't figure it out. Please help. [addsig]

Yeah, I'v have been wondering the same thing about sound cards, or in my case sound chip. Eh, when you install Turbolinux it asks if you would like to configure your sound card, but it never detects mine, and I have only a slight clue what chip it is [Eh, there's only like 4 on the mobo, two are Ali, and one is SMC, I'm guessing on of the Ali chips is sound being SMC seems to be networking related chips].

I think there is something called Advanced Linux Sound or something like that, any way the acronym is 'ALSA', it seems to be a sound standerd for Linux. I'll have to check into it a little more. [addsig]

Well, RedHat detects my chip, but I still don't have sound support. I also will look into that ALSA thing. [addsig]

do you get any error messages when trying to use sound?
[addsig]

It says the device is busy when I try to open any program related with sound, i.e. Timidity+. [addsig]

hmmmm
# chmod 0777 /dev/dsp*
# chmod 0777 /dev/mixer*

If that won't work, try to find a daemon which could possibly block your sound card...
[addsig]

OKay, I'll try that [addsig]

candidates for this could be:
aRts
esound
and some others. But the above 2 are the most commonly used ones
[addsig]

About ALSA, the command is 'alsaconf' [Assuming you have it installed, I'm not sure how standard it is in distros]. It basicaly takes you through a little questionaire similer to 'xf86config', however I still couldn't get my sound chip to work. [addsig]

ALSA never works for me as I'd like it to... the OSS module for my SB Live! is just enough
what sound system are you using btw/
and, what does the information in /proc/pic say about that sound card? maybe you can identify it like that, and ask google for a way to get it working on linux. Just did that with my new eth card some hours ago, and it worked quite good
[addsig]

The chip is Crystal CS4237B [Thank goodness for IBM's online product techs specs].

What is the command for that [The other soudn system you said]? [addsig]

afaik you don't have such programs accompanying. You don't need to configure much for a OSS module.
If you compile the OSS sound drivers as modules, you will have 3d sound enabled, else you will have 2d sounds only. The only thing you might wanna configure would be the IO-levels of all ports, but that's it you'll need to configure. And for that, almost every sound app has it's own mixer, and every Desktop has one too I'm always using OSS drivers, and they work perfect, are fast and don't block my devices. With ALSA I had simmilar problems like the above, but never had them with OSS drivers. I don't know if I've done something wrong when installing ALSA tho.

Btw, what does alsaconf do?
[addsig]

alsaconf is a terminal app, it asks you what sound chip you havem then some of the IRQ settings, ect., and then trys to start the sound chip. Very similer to the way xf86config wokrs.

Yeah, I'll have to try OSS. [addsig]

there is no such thing for OSS drivers. OSS drivers are either build into the kernel or loaded at a later point (hence, compiled as a module). You don't need to configure it or anything.
[addsig]

I think my kernel came without sound support, though you think with all the sound programs they threw in it would. It keeps talking about how it can't access mixer even though I did what you said. I'm about ready to give up. [addsig]

did you really try that chmod story? If not, do so
If you did, I would ask google if he knows somebody with similar problems, who's got the same sound chip
[addsig]

Yeah, I chmoded everything in the dev directory, amazingly enough I didn't screw anything up.....yet. [addsig]

lol
I don't think it'll screw up anything.. why should it?

but well, to be honest then... I have no idea what your prob could be, sorry
Maybe google knows
[addsig]

For OSS:
Try running the command modconf. It's an awesome ncurses front-end for loading and unloading kernel modules. On my system, the sound modules are under kernel/drivers/sound and kernel/drivers/sound/dmasound (it might be different for you). Hopefully, there will be a module for your card.

About ALSA, it works great on my computer (an iMac). The OSS driver was horrible, it always made an earsplitting high-pitched noise that was only slightly fixable by aumix, and stuff like speaker ports never worked. With ALSA, any app that uses OSS for I/O (almost every sound app) works perfectly. (and earphones work ) The home page for ALSA is at http://www.alsa-project.org. Anyway, just use whatever works better for you.

In my case ALSA wouldn't let me boot my own linux anymore... it just hung up at startup, which lollipoped quite much. And, setting up the alsa mixer is also quite... erm.... complicated
[addsig]

I GOT SOUND TO WORK!!!!! All I had to do was run RedHat's sndconfig with the --noprobe option. It gave me a list of sound cards and then I set the IRQs and stuff and lo and behold IT WORKED!!!! FINALLY! Unfortunantly, when I installed RedHat I didn't install any of the sound programs and I took the book back to the library yesterday. I figure I'll download a media player from off the web. What one do you think I should get? I'm thinking of getting xmms.

_________________
When I got VB, i could have flown without thrusters and shot down TIE Interceptors just by spitting at them.

[ This Message was edited by: dxprog on 2003-02-02 23:40 ]

Yeah, xmms is my favourite for sound files. For movies I mostly use xine and mplayer. Whatever, the whole bunch is very good [addsig]

mplayer rulz!
sorry for the rant ;9
[addsig]

OKay, new problem. I got xmms installed and it's working beautifully, but I can't play MIDIs (I'm addicted to FF6 Music). How do I get this to work? [addsig]

ok, I tell you one thing:
never ever try to get midi working on linux!
I know that some vendors do have software for getting midis running under linux, but nowadays midis are rarely used for Desktop PC games. The main stage for MIDIs these days are on consoles like GameCube. Almost all console game music nowadays is in MIDI format, but on the PC it's nearly dead... Only used for ripping music from games
But, if you still wanna try, try looking for a program called "timidity". I also know that KDE has some programs which can play MIDIs, but I never tried them, so I won't comment on these
[addsig]

I think I've actually downloaded timidity for Windows before . I'm not even bothering with MIDIs in the game I'm currently writing, but I still want my FF6 music . Thanks [addsig]

hmmm, ok, I've tried this thingy called "Kmidi", and it played all midis I've tried flawlessly. Maybe you can give it a try too
(I didn't need to setup anything)
[addsig]

"k"midi? That would mean for KDE wouldn't it? I only have Gnome and I don't think I have any KDE libraries at all. [addsig]

Hey dxprog, check out MidiMountain: www.midimountain.com, it uses Gtk+ (Gnome) for it's interface, so you won't have to install kdelibs.

On a side note, the latest version of the kernel has very good greatly improved dmasound_pmac drivers, so now I'm using OSS instead of ALSA

[ This Message was edited by: Sonarman on 2003-02-12 03:05 ]

I don't think I'm quite up to updating the kernel yet. But I'll check it out. Thanks [addsig]

I was talking about sound drivers for my own card If things are working fine for you, then great! Btw, Linux rocks!!!!! Have fun with it