[Alsa-user] Fresh ALSA install problems and questions

[BartonBosch]

I am running Red Hat 8.0 (a 2.4.18-14 kernel) with KDE on a SE440BX-2, Celeron 300A box that has an onboard Yamaha YMF-740c DS-1L PCI Audio Controller.  This uses the ymfpci drivers under OSS/Free and ALSA.  I am trying to switch from the default OSS drivers to ALSA to use some sequencing software that only works with ALSA.  I am just getting into Linux, and have done almost no compiling/manual installation of software before.

These are the sound related modules that were originally installed by the Red Hat sndconfig utility.

Module                  Size              Used by            Not tainted
ymfpci                 45420   0         (autoclean)
ac97_codec         13384   0         (autoclean) [ymfpci]
uart401                 8420   0         (autoclean) [ymfpci]
sound                  74388   0        (autoclean) [uart401]
soundcore             6532   4         (autoclean) [ymfpci sound]

I <rmmod>ed all of them except :

soundcore               6532   4        (autoclean) [ymfpci sound]

then I unpacked alsa-driver-0.9.4 into /usr/src/alsa.  I ran <./configure> in that directory.  Then <make>, and it compiled for about 50 minutes.  When I ran <make install> it seemed to be going fine until it reached the "/sbin/depmod -a 2.4.18-14" script which went through the first <if fi> loop fine but when it got to the:  

if [ -d /sbin/init.d ]; then install \
install -m 755 -g root -o root utils/alsasound /sbin/init.d/alsasound;
\ elif [ -d /etc/rc.d/init.d ]; then \  
install -m 755 -g root -o root utils/alsasound /etc/rc.d/init.d/alsasound;
\ elif [ -d /etc/init.d ]; then \
install -m 755 -g root -o root utils/alsasound /etc/init.d/alsasound; \
fi
cat WARNING
cat: WARNING: No such file or directory
make: *** [install] Error 1

part it exited with an error (as you can see).  I checked to see if an "alsasound" file had been installed in any of the above directories and there was an "/etc/rc.d/init.d/alsasound" file.  I went on with the rest of the install and eventually managed to get sound via ALSA up and running, but I am unsure whether the above is an actual error (and if so, how significant it is) or whether it is just a minor imperfection in the make install script. After <./configure>, <make>, and <make install>ing alsa-lib-0.9.4 and alsa-utils-0.9.4, I pasted this:

# ALSA Soundcard driver
# for Board with Yamaha YMF740 Chip

# ALSA portion
alias char-major-116 snd

# OSS/Free portion
alias char-major-14 soundcore

# ALSA portion
alias snd-card-0 snd-card-ymfpci

# OSS/Free portion
alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0

# OSS/Free portion - card #1
alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss
alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
alias sound-service-0-3 snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-service-0-12 snd-pcm-oss



into my "/etc/modules.conf" file (after taking out the three lines that related to sound under oss) and tried to play a .wav file, but it told me there was no device.  I think that I saw something refering to devfs in dmesg or somewhere, but I am not sure whether RH 8.0 is running devfs or not -- regardless, I ran <./snddevices> and it created a bunch of device files and on <lsmod> there were a bunch of new files listed, but no snd-ymfpci (I think that only the (autoclean) files from the list below were loaded after <./snddevices> but before <modprobe snd-ymfpci>).

I then ran <modprobe snd-ymfpci>, and I had this under <lsmod>:

snd-ymfpci                  49024   0  (unused)
snd-mpu401-uart         5168   0  [snd-ymfpci]
snd-rawmidi               18656   0  [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-opl3-lib                8708   0  [snd-ymfpci]
snd-hwdep                 6944   0  [snd-opl3-lib]
snd-seq-device           6252   0  [snd-rawmidi snd-opl3-lib]
snd-ac97-codec         48040   0  [snd-ymfpci]
snd-pcm-oss              45668   0  (autoclean) (unused)
snd-pcm                     85280   0  (autoclean) [snd-ymfpci snd-pcm-oss]
snd-timer                   19524   0  (autoclean) [snd-opl3-lib snd-pcm]
snd-page-alloc            8452   0  (autoclean) [snd-ymfpci snd-pcm]
snd-mixer-oss           16408   0  (autoclean) [snd-pcm-oss]
snd                          42884   0  (autoclean) [snd-ymfpci snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-opl3-lib snd-hwdep snd-seq-device snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm-oss snd-pcm snd-timer snd-mixer-oss]

for the sound related modules.  Now I can play .wav files with aplay after unmuting master and pcm sliders in alsamixer.  I also tried playing a wav under XMMS and that worked, but I got no sound when I tried to play an audio cd.

Lastly, on rebooting (to see which modules loaded automatically) I got a:


Sound server informational message

device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No Such Device)

The sound server will continue, using the null output device


So, the first few questions that come to mind are:  1) What is the story with the error caused by running the make install script?;  2) How do I set things up so that the snd-ymfpci modules are loaded at boot time rather than requiring a manual <modprobe snd-ymfpci>?;  3) I thought that I had configured for backwards OSS compatibility.  Can I use the KDE multimedia applications with alsa?  Do I always have to use alsa native applications?  Do I have to add plugins or get alsa versions of the KDE or Gnome multimedia apps if I want to use them?;  and, 4) How do I get the KDE sound server (arts?) to work with the alsa drivers/devices instead of /dev/dsp?

Thanks,

Barton

P.S.  Sorry for any formatting errors in the message above, I am running a dual boot system and I have't figured out the dos/linux text file conversion tools so I had to put in all the <CR><LF> by hand.