Sound module installation problem


Forum: Multimedia
Topic: Sound module installation problem
started by: lesliek

Posted by lesliek on Nov. 14 2006,02:57
I'm using DSL v 3.0.1.

On the computer concerned, I need to install a particular module, sis7019, in order to get audio.

I found on the Web a version of that module compiled for Debian. However, it was compiled for an earlier kernel version than that used in DSL.

I tried to force the installation of that module by using the -f option with insmod, but got a message that there'd been a segmentation fault.

Apart from using the -f option with insmod, are there any other things I could try in order to install this particular version of the module or is compilation of the module from source the only possibility left?

Thank you,

Leslie

Posted by seuchato on Nov. 28 2006,07:47
Lesley, I guess you must compile that very module from source.
I am lost myself somewhere with getting source and stuff to do that, but just stumbled across this post:

< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....=module >

HTH
chris

Posted by roberts on Nov. 28 2006,14:11
Have you tried to use the Alsa sound mydsl extensions?
There is one in system area and a newer updated one in testing.

Posted by lesliek on Nov. 30 2006,04:00
Thank you to both seuchato and roberts for your replies to my post.

Between the time of my original post and your replies, I'd made some further attempts to get my sound working which I think I should mention.

In my original post, I'd mentioned trying unsuccessfully to load a compiled version of the module I need (sis7019.o), which version was for an earlier kernel version than that used in DSL.

Afterwards, I found another compiled version of the module, which version was for a later kernel version than that used in DSL.

I tried to load that module using the -f option and, unlike the first one, it did load. It gave me a warning about tainting the kernel, but no warning that suggested it wouldn't work.

I'd earlier seen information which suggested that sis7019 required the ac97_codec and soundcore modules, so, when I loaded sis7019, I did so after loading the other two modules.

That information also suggested that I should create an alias for the module called sound-slot-0, so I did that too.

Then, I tried to play an mp3 file using xmms, but couldn't get xmms to open.

At that stage, I thought that the problem was with the module and so I decided to try to compile the module from source, as seuchato later suggested. However, I failed that task at the first hurdle, because I was told when I tried that I didn't have enough space to load fully the tools needed for compiling.

Since then, I've tried again to play an mp3 file with xmms, having ac97_codec, soundcore and sis7019 loaded. I did that by opening Emelfm, selecting the mp3, then "open with", typing xmms and ok. It still wouldn't work, but I got some output I hadn't seen when I'd tried earlier.

It went something like this:

tar (child): .xmms/Skins/myxmms-default-1.0.1.tar.gz: Cannot open; no such file or directory

tar (child): Error is not recoverable: exiting now

tar: Child returned status 2

However, I do have that very file. Not only that, I've made it world-readable, -writable and -executable and I still get the same output.

I'm now wondering if maybe my problem is not with the module I've now got loaded, but with xmms.

So my questions now are why I'm being told there's no such file when there is and whether the apparent absence of the file is fatal to the working of xmms.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions,

Leslie

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Nov. 30 2006,15:37
Some guesses:
Make sure you aren't running emelfm as root.  Alternatively open xmms from the desktop and open your mp3 from there (or terminal, etc.)

If you still have errors, try playing with mpg123 in terminal to see if your sound works anyways.

Posted by lesliek on Dec. 01 2006,02:56
Thanks for your reply, ^thehatsrule^.

Here are the results of my doing the things you suggested:

1. I opened Emelfm as an ordinary user, found my test mp3 file and double-left-clicked on it. I got no sound and the same message as I mentioned in my last post, about the absence of an xmms skin file.
2. I tried to open xmms from the desktop. There was a momentary flash on the bottom panel, but nothing else.
3. I tried to play the mp3 by opening the terminal and typing xmms followed by the name of the mp3, both with and without a leading sudo. In each case I got a message that there'd been a segmentation fault, but nothing else.
4. I tried to play the mp3 by opening the terminal and typing mpg123 followed by the name of the file. I got output suggesting the file was playing and, for the first time, I heard sound. However, the sound was just a chord repeated endlessly and the computer was frozen. I had to use Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot.

If anything further is suggested by the above, I'd be grateful to hear it.

There does remain the suggestion roberts made about using the Alsa sound mydsl extension. I'll now try to follow that, but I'm afraid I'll get the message about there not being enough space to load everything, like I earlier got when I tried to load the compiling tools. Still, I will try it.

Thanks again,

Leslie

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 01 2006,03:35
By reading your previous post again, I should've also advised to go for alsa or compile the driver...  using a driver not meant for the kernel usually doesn't cut it.

Are running on a livecd session with no hdd or something?

Posted by lesliek on Dec. 01 2006,04:35
I'm booting up from a USB flash drive on a baby computer that has no hard drive and everything works for me except sound.

As foreshadowed in my last post, I've since followed the steps in the info document for alsadebs.dsl (booting up with the "dsl alsa" cheat code, installing gnu-utils.dsl, dsl-dpkg.dsl and alsadebs.dsl and then choosing "Install ALSA" from the myDSL menu). After completing those steps, I tried to play an mp3 file by running mpg123 from the command line. I got the same result as mentioned in my last post, an endlessly repeating chord playing and a frozen screen.

If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd be happy to try to follow them. In their absence, I'm very disappointed, but thank you again to those who tried to help me.

Leslie

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 01 2006,16:55
Might be a hardware conflict somewhere...

but did you try to use sndconfig (or something else) that some other forum users reported to work with their setups (with alsa)?

Posted by lesliek on Dec. 02 2006,05:41
You've been very generous to have kept at this, ^thehatsrule^.

I report the following:

When I run sndconfig (without ALSA installed), I'm told first that a PCI sound card has been found in my system and the details are reported: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS]lSis 7019 Audio Accelerator. Next, however, I'm told that that card is not supported.

When I go to the ALSA website, though quite a number of SiS chipsets are referred to, the 7019 is not, from which I take it that the 7019 is not supported in ALSA. That is consistent with a number of statements I've found on the Web to the effect that the 7019 works with OSS, but not with ALSA.

At the Linux Terminal Server Project website, there are instructions for installing the sis7019 module. They say one needs not only the sis7019 modules, but also the ac97_codec and soundcore modules. They say one should modify the modules.conf file by adding:

below sis7019 ac97_codec soundcore
alias sound-slot-0 sis7019.

I haven't done that, but I believe I've done the equivalent.

First, I've put into bootlocal.sh the following:

sudo insmod ac97_codec
sudo insmod soundcore
sudo insmod -f /cdrom/sis7019

Secondly, I've put into .bashrc:

alias sound-slot-0'"sis7019"

When I run lsmod, the modules are listed; when I run alias, the alias is listed.

Finally, the computer is capable of producing sound under Linux. It came with a compact flash card on which Puppy Linux had been pre-installed. I can get sound when booting up with that distribution, which has the sis7019 module by default.

However, I don't want to use Puppy Linux. I want to use DSL, which I admire from having installed an earlier version of it for someone on an old laptop. Hence, all of this pestering by me .

If you have any more suggestions, I'll give them a go, but if not, thank you again for trying.

Leslie

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 02 2006,06:26
Hm, so either find a precompiled kernel module for sis7019 for kernel version 2.4.26, or compile one yourself.  (did you check if they were already part of knoppix 3.4 ?)
Posted by lesliek on Dec. 02 2006,22:13
Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, the possibility of compiling the module myself is out because, when I try to boot up with the gcc1, kernelsource and gnu-util extensions all installed, the computer tells me at some stage that it's run out of space and the loading doesn't complete.

As to looking to see if the module was in knoppix 3.4, I may not have looked in the right places, but I haven't been able to find a document which lists the contents of knoppix 3.4. The few links I found which seemed as though they would give such a list are now dead.

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 03 2006,00:51
How much space do you have in your USB flash drive? (free space?)  If you have enough, you can try extracting kernelsource to the drive instead of your ram (using tar zxvf).

You may not need gnu-utils extensions, so don't load it.

As for gcc1, if that's the one that you're always running out of space on, you can extract it (like in the first paragraph of this post) and delete some stuff you wont need... (ie X related things), then either remake the extension, or you could just manually copy over the things you need (ie gcc binaries, basic header files, sound related things).

Or you could ask someone nice enough to compile it for you, or look up their knoppix cd/dvds for you.
Side note: you could also just create a temporary swap on your USB just to do this - but it is not recommended to keep one on your flash drive!

Posted by lesliek on Dec. 03 2006,04:03
I have 192.7MB free space on my flash drive.

I know that there are extensions whose names end in .tar.gz, as well as those whose names end in .dsl.

So far as I knew, the kernelsource and gcc1 extensions were both of the latter type.

Is it possible to unpack .dsl extensions with the tar command? If so, do I rename them as .tar.gz files first?

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 03 2006,19:58
.dsl files are .tar.gz files.  You do not need to rename them if you don't want to.
The difference between them is a mydsl specific naming thing.

Posted by lesliek on Dec. 03 2006,21:32
Thanks for that information, ^thehatsrule^. I'll try now to use my flash drive to store the necessary extensions.

I don't ask you to comment on this (at least, not yet!), but I had another idea about compiling the driver. I can run DSL on my regular computer from the live cd. That computer has 512MB of RAM. I wondered whether, while running DSL that way, I could mount some storage facility, say, the very USB flash drive from which I can run DSL on my little computer, then install the necessary extensions and driver source on the ramdisk on my big computer on which I'm running DSL, compile the driver on the ramdisk and then save it to the USB drive. If that's possible, then I wouldn't have to worry about the limitations on compiling imposed by the little computer's specifications.

Thanks again,

Leslie

Posted by Mellon on Dec. 11 2006,06:25
please let me know if you solve your problem. i just get a microcient computer with the same sound card (maybe the same as you) and seems like you have doing so much things that i dont understand.

Saludos!!!

Posted by lesliek on Dec. 12 2006,00:04
Hello, Mellon.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to solve my problem, which relates, as you suspected, to the MicroClient Jr. Because I couldn't solve it, I made a request that the sis7019 module be supported in the next release of DSL. Whether that request will be looked on favourably, I don't know

Have you tried, as an alternative to DSL, another small distribution, Puppy? Version 2.12 of that distribution does support the necessary module, I can confirm.

Posted by Mellon on Dec. 12 2006,05:07
yep, i already try puppy, but i prefer dsl, we gonna have to wait, anyway my amule and gaim are working fine, i can live without the sound for the moment.
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