Re: sound problem

[Ryan McDougall <NQG24419 nifty com>]

On Sat, 2005-02-04 at 21:45 -0500, Greg Foster wrote:
> I have been having problems with my sound from day one, The only thing 
> that works is streaming music from another computer or playing mp3 on 
> this computer. If I use system sounds X lock ups.
> 
> Same results in KDS
> 
> The error i get now from xmms is:
> Please check that:
> Your sound card is configured properly
> You have the correct output plug in selected
> No other program is blocking the sound card
> 
> Error I get from most other programs is:
> Error while initializing the sound driver:
> device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No such device)
> 
> The sound server will continue, using the null output device
> 
> The /dev/dsp is on my system owned by root, group of audio
> 
> I would also like to get all speakers working on my system.
> 
> My system is a:
> AMD 2.6
> FIC AU13 motherboard
> On board sound nforce2 6 channel
> Radeon 9600 256mg video card
> 200gig hard drive
> 20gig hard drive
> CDRW Liteon
> DVDRW Liteon
> 
> Does not matter what kernel I use
> I am currently using Kernel 2.6.8-2-k7
> 
> I am fairly new to Linux
> 
> Please help
> Greg

I'm afraid you really need to be a lot more clear if you want people to
take time out from their lives to help you fix your machine for free.

How can your stream music or play mp3s if your sound doesnt work? What
is "system sounds"? Is KDS a type-o for KDE? How can you play mp3s if
xmms doesnt work? Did something change? What other programs do you use
besides xmms that give you the error? Does the drivers for the nforce
audio have  speaker support? Is there a proprietary linux driver from
nvidia.com?

It matters a lot what version of kernel you use since that is where the
open source kernel drivers are placed. I suspect you won't be able to
get all 6 speakers working because companies like nvidia often refuse to
cooperate with driver writers by telling them how the hardware works.
Mostly drivers have to guess and otherwise reverse-engineer the hardware
interfaces.

What distribution do you use (Mandrake, Redhat, Suse, ...)? The layer
for making sound work is the kernel layer, which is lower than GNOME,
and not really something we are able to fix. The responsibility for
getting it work is with your distro, especially if you paid a linux
company for your OS.

Cheers,
Ryan