Other Help Topics :: Help with Crystal CS4231A-AL SoundCard

I want to get my Crystal CS4231A-AL (at least thats what on the chip :-) ) SoundCard working but I don't think the cs4232.o module will work, and I don't know how to set it up.

I noticed this post:
http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....=15814;
but thats for another Crystal on a laptop.

From another linux dist I get this from some unknown probe:
/dev/cua0 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A

I want to try this module but I'm unsure as to what command\commands should I use, maybe something like "beep" only for the sound card... Help ?

Thanks

P.S\Edit: I did have one FreeBSD floppy that was able to use my sound card without any configurations or problems, Its called "1fcd" and I have no clue as how to find out what it uses cause it doesn't even have dmesg in it, and I can't seem to be able to mount the thing...

1) Boot up DSL
2) At command prompt, as root, run:

Code Sample

#modprobe cs4232

3) Test success with xmms. If you don't know what that is, it's kind of like winamp. It can play mp3s and some other sound formats.

Did that work? If not, what happened, especially the output of running step #2?

Ya, I already tried that with no success:

modprobe cs4232:

Quote

/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o: init_module: No such device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o failed
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o: insmod cs4232 failed

insmod cs4232:

Quote

Using /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o: unresolved symbol ad1848_detect
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o: unresolved symbol ad1848_init
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o: unresolved symbol probe_uart401
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o: unresolved symbol ad1848_control
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o: unresolved symbol ad1848_unload
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o: unresolved symbol unload_uart401
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o: unresolved symbol audio_devs
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4232.o: unresolved symbol sound_unload_audiodev

I also noticed their are other modules with the cs header so I tried them too (thank god for ssh :-) ):

insmod cs46xx:

Quote

Using /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs46xx.o
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs46xx.o: unresolved symbol ac97_probe_codec
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs46xx.o: unresolved symbol ac97_alloc_codec
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs46xx.o: unresolved symbol ac97_release_codec

modprobe cs46xx:

Quote

/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs46xx.o: init_module: No such device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs46xx.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs46xx.o failed
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs46xx.o: insmod cs46xx failed

insmod cs4281:

Quote

Using /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4281/cs4281.o
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4281/cs4281.o: init_module: No such device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg

modprobe cs4281:

Quote

/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4281/cs4281.o: init_module: No such device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4281/cs4281.o: insmod /lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4281/cs4281.o failed
/lib/modules/2.4.26/kernel/drivers/sound/cs4281/cs4281.o: insmod cs4281 failed

If I could only mount that FreeBSD image, I would extract the ramdisk and mount it so I may see what modules does it uses and maybe add in dmesg or modprobe or something...

It occurred to me that maybe a script that goes through all the sound modules to find those that work isn't a bad idea...

I didn't try to run XMMS later, do I have too ? Are not the errors enough ?

P.S: I now tested both versions of 1fcd, the linux one and the freebsd one, the linux version failed to recognize my soundcard while the freebsd one succeeded in the detection.
Also both are using kernel version 2.4.20 (though I would of thought the freebsd kernel numbering will work differently...).

So, should I just go here http://www.damnsmallbsd.org/

I forgot to ask, what type of card is this? PCMCIA or internal? USB? I did some searching for your card, it appears to be more of a chipset than a card. I didn't find much. Where did you get it? Do you have the original manual and CDs? Do you know the manufacturer's website? How new is this card? How new is your laptop?

As for damn small freebsd, I'm guessing you didn't check out that website very much. It only has about 7 pages, and the only download is a readme that says "Coming soon."

It appears that alsa has the driver you are looking for. That assumes that 4231.o is the driver you need. Alsa is available in the mydsl repository (system section). It is quite old, but might work. I'd recommend trying the one in the testing section first. It has a simpler setup, and is actually smaller. I checked, and it has the 4231.o driver.

Make sure you follow the instructions in the info file. The one in system requires gnu-utils.dsl and dsl-dpkg.dsl, so you might have problems on older hardware with low ram. If you have low ram, boot with unionfs and use the .uncs. If you do that anyway, cool.

If that doesn't work, there is still alsa-project.org and packages.debian.org. And the Knoppix CD that the DSL kernel came from.

Have you tried DSL-N? DSL-N has a 2.6 kernel, which in a lot of cases has superior hardware detection and usability. It is still in beta-beta stage, but it works, and in my opinion is perfectly good for day to day use.

I hear ubuntu has good hardware detection. I recently tried to get a cheap game controller working, and couldn't get it to work in either windows (supposedly supported) or debian. Ubuntu detected it just fine.

Good luck. I think that alsa is the solution you are looking for.

This SND card is Internal PCI.

I don't think Alsa is used in that 1fcd so I don't think its necessary but I'll give it a go.

I already had gnu-utils.dsl so now dsl-dpkg.dsl...

The ram shouldn't be a problem as currently I use 128mb linux-swap + 1 workspace = 11mb on ram.

I haven't tried DSL-N, I look into that later on.
*Edit: I Just looked here: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/dsl-n/
Which falls under the next statement |Look-V-Down|

2.6 kernel lost some functionality in terms of old hardware and its heavier on the machine.

I use Ubuntu and Gentoo on some of my machines but Ubuntu won't work on this old horse and Gentoo will literally take days to compile, and will be to hard to setup :-)

Some more info:

I pieced this old computer from all kind of junk I had laying around:
I Received the casing ,the Motherboard, 16mb ram and the Sound Card 6 months ago from a friend who was getting rid of some of his junk, the Video Adapter, The 100MB HD and later the 30GB HD, the old keyboard, the modem, another 16mb ram and the LAN card I had laying around for years, So I put them all in one machine:

* 1 75Mhz Pentium 100 CPU
* 1 Intel Motherboard
* 1 100MB HD
* 1 30GB HD
* 1 Lan Realtek 8139 (rev 16).
* 1 Modem RC288DPi Rev 05BA (either "Rockwell ACi 28,800" OR "NetComm InModem 288 v.34")
* 2 16MB ram (=32)
* SND card ("Crystal CS4231A-AL" written on a chip and on the PCB)

I was using it as an LPD print server and SSH with FreeSco but then I added the 30GB HD, at first I only added an FTP server and samba sharing through FreeSco, but recently I found DSL and a store in a near-by town selling old serial mice.

I ordered a mouse, installed DSL and found it working well, the only problem is I still need to recover some functionality I lost :
The SSH was easily redo-able and the FTP is last priority cause I can always reboot and boot-up freesco.
The LPD server is my main concern and having the SND card working will make it all worth while cause then I'll be able to use this machine as an MP3 station + eMail and for light browsing :-)

If you look through my posts you can actually see me working through most of this on piece of hardware at a time :-D

For instance I'm running the kernel through grub with this parameters :
quiet vga=normal noacpi noapm noscsi nodhcp nopcmcia nofirewire noagp nodma

Light, ha ? :-)

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