Getting alsa loaded on HD Install...
Forum: Multimedia
Topic: Getting alsa loaded on HD Install...
started by: geodescent
Posted by geodescent on Mar. 13 2005,00:27
I have a DSL HD install and would like to get sound working. I have taken EVERY step in the alsadebs.dsl info file EXCEPT the part about typing "dsl alsa" at the boot prompt. Reason here is because I have an HD install so there is no boot prompt. I have tried adding "alsa" to the lilo.conf file but that doesn't appear to do anything. I have tried "modprobe soundcore" but that does nothing. Without getting into what arcane soundboard my laptop has integrated (still trying to find out), how to I cause this "dsl alsa" flag to execute each time upon boot so that I can work from there?P.S. Single boot system with no fear of reformatting. :-P
Posted by cbagger01 on Mar. 13 2005,05:30
1) If it is included in your append statement inside youe lilo.conf file AND you re-ran the lilo program after saving the conf file to rebuilt your lilo, then your changes are now in effect.2) You shouldn't have to do this, but I believe that if you do a new hdinstall after booting from cd with the "dsl alsa" command, it will copy the settings into your hdinstall.
Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Mar. 13 2005,05:36
I'd install grub instead of lilo, so you don't have to reinstall DSL.It's a lot faster.
Posted by geodescent on Mar. 13 2005,08:09
EDIT: Actually I added the "alsa" flag to my lilo.conf append section and added the modprobe statement below to my bootlocal.sh. Thought I'd point out for anyone who happens across this post...I added the necessary line "modprobe sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=5 mpu_io=0x330" to my append portion in lilo.conf and that did the trick. Was able to run the MyDSL "Install ALSA" script and I do get sound working in "PenguinCommand" but not in "MPlayer." Any ideas on that? Sadly, my soundcard is the Xpress Audio 16bit thing and i have no "rc.d" directory as mentioned < here. >
Sound functions from only PenguinCommand after boot but MPlayer tells me I have no audio device. Strangely enough, it *did* work once, but I can't figure out what, if anything I did different, since at that point I was manually keying in the modprobe statements as root.
Thus far, the little sidebar app does load the mixer control and does actually adjust volume, so that's a start. Now if I could just enjoy "savetheantelope.mpg" with audio!
Posted by geodescent on Mar. 13 2005,08:28
Success! The problem was choosing the alsa audio output driver in MPlayer instead of the OSS driver, which works! But lord, how slow my laptop suddenly seems. :P
Posted by tempestuous on Mar. 14 2005,10:29
Your Cyrix Xpress 16 sound card is an oddity. Apparently it's embedded within your PC's Cyrix MediaGX main processor.(You haven't mentioned what laptop you have, I suspect it's a Compaq.)
It's partially SoundBlaster compatible, but not completely. Compaq has a unique Windows95 driver available for it at < http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/codrus.html >
I can't give you a complete solution, just some pointers ...
There are 2 basic "familes" of Linux sound drivers - the old OSS drivers, and newer ALSA drivers. The OSS drivers are already present in DSL.
Your quote -
"I added the necessary line "modprobe sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=5 mpu_io=0x330"
This will load the OSS SoundBlaster driver (sb.o), not ALSA.
It sounds like you might be loading BOTH sets of drivers, and this might explain why your laptop is slow.
I would first try to get the OSS driver working properly. Remove the "alsa" boot option and your OSS driver might start behaving.
Don't use the boot option "modprobe sb ...", load it manually after DSL has fully loaded, and later add it to your /opt/bootlocal.sh file.
Check your bios to see if the irq and dma settings are correct.
If this doesn't work, then try the ALSA driver. After initialising the drivers with the boot option "alsa", ALSA attempts to autodetect your card.
But it's probably better to manually load the ALSA driver as such -
modprobe snd-sb16 isapnp=0 port=0x220 mpu_port=0x330 fm_port=0x388 irq=5 dma8=1 dma16=5
Again, I'm a little unsure about the accuracy of these settings. Perhaps try alsaconf instead. If successful, this will set up your /etc/modprobe.conf file and the driver should then load correctly every time.
Finally, it may still appear that sound doesn't work, because mixer settings are muted by default with ALSA. Run -
alsamixer
and unmute the master volume by pressing "m".
Craig S
Posted by geodescent on Mar. 24 2005,00:25
I actually had the modprobe line in my bootlocal.sh, so I kept it in and removed the "alsa" line from my lilo.conf and sound still works like a charm. I have verified it against BIOS settings and the main beef I have is a 233MHz proc's inability to handle high video bitrates that are common today. MPlayer can drop frames but you can imagine what the result looks like. Can't complain though.My laptop is a CTX EzBook 700G. It is so rare you're hard-pressed to find specs on it. I have them somewhere but essentially we're talking 233MHz Cyrix you mentioned above, 128MB ram, 2Gig HD, craptastic built-in audio described above, and also some integrated video as well, further stealing proc cycles.
But unlike Window$ 98, DSL doesn't crash every time I do, well, anything.
Posted by thebufenator on April 05 2005,20:53
well, I have a P200MMX with 32mb ram.......boostill working on geting sound working. I also have 256mb in the mail.
What audio drivers are better? the OSS ones or the ALSA one?
Posted by tempestuous on April 10 2005,00:57
geodescent,I have a modestly powered laptop similar in spec to yours. Higher bitrates are not generally at fault for poor video performance. The problem is resolution + framerate + codec-complexity (plus another factor I will mention later). These consume your processing power.
The full standard-definition PAL video spec of 720x576 pixels, 25 fps is simply not possible with our laptops. The best we can do is approx 540x400 pixels, 12 or 15 fps, XviD or DivX or MPEG2.
AND the other factor which will help to make your video performance stutter-free is to reduce the audio sample rate to 22050 Hz (or 32000 Hz for MPEG2). It seems that our sound cards really drain processor resources, both with OSS and ALSA, and reducing the demand on the sound card makes a large difference.
And don't blame DSL's TinyX graphics drivers. The full XFree86 drivers will achieve fullscreen playback, but they won't allow any larger source resolutions to be used.
thebufenator,
ALSA drivers are newer and more sophisticated than OSS. If you have a professional sound card like an MAudio Delta there's no choice, you must use ALSA.
But for older sound cards ALSA can't do much better than the OSS drivers. I should know, I dual-boot my old Sony VAIO between 2 Linux distributions - one configured for OSS and one configured for ALSA.
Craig S
Posted by geodescent on April 10 2005,05:09
I don't doubt the videodrivers are more than capable. But watching the CPU go at 100% just for video playback pretty much speaks for itself. :-P Still nice to see that laptop turn into a stable, quick little surfing machine. Now if I could just get a functional battery. Even the brand new ones are DOA (working with eRecycler to get them RMA'd nearly as soon asI receive a replacement)