On Thursday July 18 2002 03:27 am, Marcia wrote:
> I am still struggling with my sound on LM8.2 on Athlon XP +1600 with
> the via82xxxaudio driver installed and it works to some extent.
> This is a brand new system with the ELitegroup ECS Socket a L7VMM
> motherboard with integrated video and sound, the sound, AC97 Audio
> Codec uses the via82xxxaudio driver. The module must be loaded or the
> CD player would not work I am sure.
Well, that's a common misconception, so don't feel too bad. The CD
drive plays directly thru if there's a CD audio cable in place. Tho
the connection is CDrom to sound card or a header on the mobo, sound
drivers do not come into play. AC97 is a codec, actual hardware
implementation varies with the quality/design of the mobo/chipset
vendor. IOW's, playin CD audio's is all done in hardware, not much if
any different than in your car, or a portable CD player.
I would like to use alsa and I
> thought that is what is being used except it will not start in
> services. I have played with changing the services for alsa and sound
> and fiddled with the sound server over and over. I finally fiddled
> enough to get xmms to respond as if it is playing a song but still no
> sound.
IME, OSS is usually best for AC97, but I can only get Crossover QT
movies to play sound using ALSA with my (Soyo/kt133a chipset) AC97.
ALSA should be the preferred driver, but not all chips work with all
sound apps and ALSA. IOW's, Linux sound is almost there, be patient,
hopefully somebody's workin on it ;)
The bars were moving and xmms believed it was playing it,
> anyway. Yes I have aumix on, etc. Is there anything else I am not
> thinking of? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very
> much.
>
> How would I know if the alsa drivers are being used or if the
> oss/free are instead?
If you're usin KDE, I'd use Kmix, and save the sound setting, or dock
it into the panel so you can change it easily.
With xmms, you select the driver under preferences, and that's what
you're fixin to use. You didn't go overboard choosing security level,
did ya? Standard is the right choice for a desktop, I run at 'msec 1'
(low). Too high a level and the main person you're keeping out ... is
you. I suspect you might have a permission problem. A sure way to fix
it is to (as root) 'chmod -R 0777 /dev', but you probly only need
chmod 666 /dev/dsp* /dev/audio* /dev/mixer* /dev/midi* /dev/sequencer*
Try that, and holler back. Should'a been setup with no problem
during install (8.x) ... you might have a more hardware related issue.
The ECS L7VMM is not AMD recommended, and only some good PSU's are
also. It appears to be a pretty stripped down OEM type board more
suitable for Windoze. There's an April bios release to fix a random
reboot under load problem, not a good omen. It's VT8233A chipset board
(that's where the sound circuits are), and I believe there was recent
discussion on the list about those, so check the archive. I'm not so
sure via82cxxx_audio is the right one for that chipset. Your 'lsmod',
other configs otherwise looked OK.
Probly not related to your sound issues, but you should pass a 'mem='
parameter (in lilo or grub) deducting the video usage, 32MB and 2MB for
sound and 1MB for mobo use. IOW's, if you've got 128MB of ram in the
slot(s), pass mem= 93M. Please don't be discouraged by my less than
favorable remarks on that mobo, but they are based on specs, features,
lack of AMD approval, and IMO brand (ECS). Worse comes to worse, you
might try disabling onboard in bios (probly takes two settings) and get
a cheap sound blaster AWE64.
--
Tom Brinkman Corpus Christi, Texas
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
