[SLE] First Post: Sound Config for Dell Inspiron 3500 laptop
Hello to All: This is my first posting to this list. I have been learning a lot from you just reading and am thankful you all are here and so generous with your time. I am writing because I have been unable to configure the sound on my Dell Inspiron 3500 laptop. Here is the problem: First, I have to warn you that I am a rank beginner, and I have only recently moved over from Windows, and would say that I am able to follow most of the instructions in the manuals, but am still afraid that if I go into configuration files and edit them directly, something will be irretrievably destroyed, so please don't worry about overexplaining . My computer is a Dell Inspiron 3500 laptop, with a 266 mhz pentium two processor and 192 mb of memory. It has a 12 GB hard drive that is dual booting Windows 98 and SuSE Personal Linux 7.3. It is up and running and I can connect to the internet and receive and send email, but as of now I have not been able to get the sound to work. It is my understanding that yast2 tries to configure sound with the ALSA drivers. I have gone to the ALSA homepage and found that my sound card (NeoMagic MagicMedia 256AV is the name of my sound card, actually, the AV stands for Audio Visual as this is a single card that is used for both audio as well as the screen.) is supported by the ALSA driver: snd-card-nm256. Using yast2 I select sound from the hardware menu and yast2 correctly indentifies my sound card as: "MagicMedia 256AV Audio Device on Colorado Inspiron. " I select the "Normal setup" and receive this error message: "kernel module snd-card-nm256 could not be loaded. you may have incorrect module parameters including I/O or IRQ." I am assuming this message is referring to these parameters in my bios: Audio: Customized SB I/O: 220 WSS I/O: 530 Adlib: 848 IRQ: 5 1DMA: 0 2DMA: 1 There is a side bar to the error message that says to be sure that the alsa package from the sound series has been installed correctly, but I am ignoring this since I have reinstalled the system three times and have gotten the same error each time. The side bar also suggests that I try passing options to the alsa module, but I don't know what this means. It also suggests that I try using the oss/free module, which I do, but which is equally unsuccessful. Neither does alsaconf work. My suspicion is that I need to fiddle with the I/O or IRQ settings, but this is not something I feel I have enough knowledge to play around with on my own. I hope this is enough information for someone to make a diagnosis. Thank You. Neal McDermott
Hi, despite ages of trying i never got my nm256 to work with the alsa sound system under suse7.2, maybe 7.3 is better at it. To get working sound, the solution is a bit complicated, and involves editting /etc/rc.config and /etc/modules.conf, but it does work. Basically you need to disable the alsa sound system, and instead use the older and simpler OSS system. First, in /etc/rc.config you need to change the 2 lines referring to starting ALSA from yes to no, and run /sbin/SuSEconfig. Next, copy /etc/modules.conf so you have a backup, then (very carefully) do as I say below: in /etc/modules.conf find the lines alias char-major-14 off alias sound off alias midi off and add #'s in front of each line below these 3 lines add a line saying alias char-major-14 nm256_audio then, you need to comment out any existing alsa configuration in modules.conf. most likely these lines are at the end of /etc/modules.conf, and will look like this alias char-major-116 snd options snd snd_cards_limit=1 snd_major=116 alias snd-card-0 snd-card-nm256 options snd-card-nm256 snd_id=card1 snd_index=0 alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0 alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss and so on, there may be several lines all referring to either snd-card-x or sound-service-x, comment them all out. Save the /etc/modules.conf file, and exit. As root, type "depmod -a", then you might as well try and reboot. When you reboot try playing a sound, it might come out horribly garbled the first time after each reboot, then it should work fine after that. If you have any more questions about it give me an email, and if you cant get it working email me with any error messages you are getting. Ewan On Tue, 2002-04-09 at 22:46, neal mcdermott wrote:
Hello to All:
This is my first posting to this list. I have been learning a lot from you just reading and am thankful you all are here and so generous with your time. I am writing because I have been unable to configure the sound on my Dell Inspiron 3500 laptop. Here is the problem:
First, I have to warn you that I am a rank beginner, and I have only recently moved over from Windows, and would say that I am able to follow most of the instructions in the manuals, but am still afraid that if I go into configuration files and edit them directly, something will be irretrievably destroyed, so please don't worry about overexplaining .
My computer is a Dell Inspiron 3500 laptop, with a 266 mhz pentium two processor and 192 mb of memory. It has a 12 GB hard drive that is dual booting Windows 98 and SuSE Personal Linux 7.3. It is up and running and I can connect to the internet and receive and send email, but as of now I have not been able to get the sound to work.
It is my understanding that yast2 tries to configure sound with the ALSA drivers. I have gone to the ALSA homepage and found that my sound card (NeoMagic MagicMedia 256AV is the name of my sound card, actually, the AV stands for Audio Visual as this is a single card that is used for both audio as well as the screen.) is supported by the ALSA driver: snd-card-nm256.
Using yast2 I select sound from the hardware menu and yast2 correctly indentifies my sound card as: "MagicMedia 256AV Audio Device on Colorado Inspiron. " I select the "Normal setup" and receive this error message:
"kernel module snd-card-nm256 could not be loaded. you may have incorrect module parameters including I/O or IRQ."
I am assuming this message is referring to these parameters in my bios:
Audio: Customized SB I/O: 220 WSS I/O: 530 Adlib: 848 IRQ: 5 1DMA: 0 2DMA: 1
There is a side bar to the error message that says to be sure that the alsa package from the sound series has been installed correctly, but I am ignoring this since I have reinstalled the system three times and have gotten the same error each time. The side bar also suggests that I try passing options to the alsa module, but I don't know what this means. It also suggests that I try using the oss/free module, which I do, but which is equally unsuccessful. Neither does alsaconf work.
My suspicion is that I need to fiddle with the I/O or IRQ settings, but this is not something I feel I have enough knowledge to play around with on my own. I hope this is enough information for someone to make a diagnosis.
Thank You.
Neal McDermott
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Ewan Leith wrote:
Hi,
despite ages of trying i never got my nm256 to work with the alsa sound system under suse7.2, maybe 7.3 is better at it.
To get working sound, the solution is a bit complicated, and involves editting /etc/rc.config and /etc/modules.conf, but it does work.
Basically you need to disable the alsa sound system, and instead use the older and simpler OSS system.
First, in /etc/rc.config you need to change the 2 lines referring to starting ALSA from yes to no, and run /sbin/SuSEconfig.
Next, copy /etc/modules.conf so you have a backup, then (very carefully) do as I say below:
in /etc/modules.conf find the lines
alias char-major-14 off alias sound off alias midi off
and add #'s in front of each line
below these 3 lines add a line saying
alias char-major-14 nm256_audio
then, you need to comment out any existing alsa configuration in modules.conf. most likely these lines are at the end of /etc/modules.conf, and will look like this
alias char-major-116 snd options snd snd_cards_limit=1 snd_major=116 alias snd-card-0 snd-card-nm256 options snd-card-nm256 snd_id=card1 snd_index=0 alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-0 alias sound-service-0-0 snd-mixer-oss alias sound-service-0-1 snd-seq-oss
and so on, there may be several lines all referring to either snd-card-x or sound-service-x, comment them all out.
Save the /etc/modules.conf file, and exit. As root, type "depmod -a", then you might as well try and reboot.
When you reboot try playing a sound, it might come out horribly garbled the first time after each reboot, then it should work fine after that.
If you have any more questions about it give me an email, and if you cant get it working email me with any error messages you are getting.
Ewan
Ewan, Okay, I did all the things you advised and tried to play a cd, but got no sound or error message. When I tried to play a mp3 with Xmms, I got this error message: "Couldn't open audio. Please check that: 1. you have correct output plugin selected. 2. no other programs are blocking the soundcard 3. your soundcard is configured properly" Also, if this will help, this is what my console log said the first time I rebooted the computer after following your instructions: linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-slot-0 linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-service-0-0 linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-slot-0 linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-service-0-0 linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-slot-0 linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-service-0-3 Finally, the only other thing I could think of doing was logging in as root in a shell and running yast2 .oss I got this message from that: ".oss no such client module, please check yast2 logfile." In the yast2 logfile it basically repeated the no such module message. My guess is that maybe I need to install the oss module? Is this anywhere near correct? Thanks Neal
Did you change /etc/rc.config to have START_ALSA="no" and START_ALSA_SEQ="no" and run /sbin/SuSEconfig ? Yast2 doesnt provide any configuration for OSS, you pretty much have to do it yourself. Can you reboot, try and run xmms, and then type "lsmod" as root, and post the output? What happens if you just type "modprobe nm256_audio" yourself? Ewan
Okay, I did all the things you advised and tried to play a cd, but got no sound or error message. When I tried to play a mp3 with Xmms, I got this error message:
"Couldn't open audio. Please check that:
1. you have correct output plugin selected. 2. no other programs are blocking the soundcard 3. your soundcard is configured properly"
Also, if this will help, this is what my console log said the first time I rebooted the computer after following your instructions:
linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-slot-0 linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-service-0-0 linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-slot-0 linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-service-0-0 linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-slot-0 linux modprobe: modprobe: can't locate module sound-service-0-3
Finally, the only other thing I could think of doing was logging in as root in a shell and running yast2 .oss
I got this message from that: ".oss no such client module, please check yast2 logfile."
In the yast2 logfile it basically repeated the no such module message.
My guess is that maybe I need to install the oss module? Is this anywhere near correct?
Thanks
Neal
participants (2)
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Ewan Leith -
neal mcdermott