[ltp] Help, no sound fc4, A20m

[Helen Borrie]

At 11:24 PM 3/09/2005 -0400, you wrote:

>>2) Shut down any [gui setup interface] and any applications that may be 
>>accessing the sound driver. Make sure to check the taskbar for any 
>>running apps like Kmix volume level or Amarok... There's a command to 
>>check what apps are running, but I can't remember what it is.
>
>top.. and it doesn't show any sound aps running

Use ps.  top only shows the top (n) users of cpu.




>>3) Go to [your services interface] and make sure the ALSA is running, if 
>>not stop and restart it. YOU MUST HAVE MADE SURE YOU DID STEP 2 OR YOU'LL 
>>GET AN ERROR.
>
>Alsa is running... I can do aplay ( a *.wav file ) and it plays... dead 
>silent.
>xmms also runs, plays all the way through the wav file also... dead silent.

OK, you are where I am right now with the sound driver for *my* Thinkpad 
(not the same one as you are dealing with).  Like you, I think there is a 
missing something.  I *have* had sound working past this point, before my 
unsuccessful trial of Mandriva 2005 last weekend.

In older Linuxen, we had sndconfig.  I wish we could get it back.  :-(  My 
big frustration is that I'm on Mandrake and its drakconf front-end to the 
hardware and system configuration is tres, tres buggy.  There's a "System" 
tool that is supposed to report running services and allow you to start and 
stop them.  In summary, it is totally inaccurate and useless about what is 
happening on the system.


>>5) Type "cd /sbin" to go to the sbin directory
>>Type "./lsmod" to find what sound module is running. mine had 'snd-CS46xx 
>>81896 7'
>>Type "./modprobe -r snd-CS46xx" to remove the sound module and change 
>>'snd-CS46xx' to whatever yours is from the lsmod command if necessary
>
>This is interesting, if I do modeprobe - r snd-cs46xx
>I get:
>FATAL: Module snd_cs46xx is in use.
>FATAL: Error running remove command for snd_cs46xx
>
>This happens if I do it right after boot-up, top reports 2 running
>and shows X, rhn-applet-gui, gnome-terminal, top , init
>hald nifd show up now and then.
>
>I think that this is ( Module snd_cs46xx is in use ) must be the problem.
>Now how do I find out what is using it?

Again, try ps, e.g.

ps -ax | grep alsa

and also grep on various other sound components that you do know of.


>One other strange thing, if I press either the A20Ms volume up or down 
>buttons,
>I get a speaker beep.

Lucky you.  I got either no response or a piercing squeal that wouldn't go 
away except by a halt -np

When I get time, I'm going to go through everything and try to work out 
what is really happening under the hood.  I'm thinking about pulling mine 
back to a 2.4 kernel, not least for the smaller footprint.  The 2.6 kernel 
seems to be fine on my P4 notebook (w. 1.5 Gb RAM) and on my AMD 2.2 GHz 
server (with 2.5 Gb) so I'm tending to accept that a 256Mb with a 333 Mhz 
cpu might just be a tad overwhelmed, even if it *is* a Thinkpad.

Is there some irrational temptation to try and put our vintage TPs at the 
bleeding edge and subject them to the rigours of the fattest kernel 
ever?  Really, my Thinkpad's raison d'etre is to be a transportable 
database server for conference/boardroom demos and such.  It does that 
flawlessly.  I should just get happy and stop toying with it.  Do Thinkpads 
turn everyone into a dilettante, or is it just me?  :-)

Helen