No sound using XMMS and ALSA

[VernDog]

I have a older Compaq laptop that has a es1869 built in. It works using Windows and TinyME and PCLinuxOS, but I keep getting a message using XMMS that sayd check sound settings. OSS just doesn't work. It thinks I have a usb sound. ALSA is what has worked in the past. But using alsaconfig, it doesn't find my card.

Don't know it all this is related to the kernel or some module. It would be nice if I could test this card first.

[Jason W]

Did you try the option to probe for legacy cards?  And then select ex18xx?  There is an snd-ex18xx.ko module as part of alsa_modules.tcem.  I have a couple of those cards but none installed to test with, but it should work.

[VernDog]

Yes I did. First I thought I needed to just select my esx card, it found nothing. Then I let it try to find any legacy card and then it choose opl13. Something like that. I tried to modify the modules.conf file, but still a no-go.

[Jason W]

I will put in one of my es18xx cards and see what may be going on.  The alsaconf script was adjusted for PPI or TCZ kernel modules and tested with the usual non-legacy auto detection.  The same changes may need to be made to the legacy functions in the script as they were given the changes.  That is probably what is the matter now that I think about it.

[Jason W]

I put in the card and alsaconf worked and inserted the modules, but alsamixer and speaker-test would not work.  Dmesg said that the chipset was not found.  So alsaconf is working ok, there is some other issues.  I will look deeper and get back with results if there are any.

[Jason W]

Turned out I needed to set in the BIOS that I'm using a plug and play operating system.  Now all is well with the es1869 card and alsa.  I don't think that this is the same as your issue as my card did not work with other distros, either OSS or ALSA.  I have heard that using cs4232 sometimes is necessary for this chipset.  Might be worth a try.

EDIT:  I have found that running alsaconf for a second time says no legacy cards found even though I told it to look for es18xx.  I will see if I can't fix that somehow. 

EDIT2 That issue does not happen when I rebooted and used alsa with my tclocal mount.  I don't know what caused it that time, but all is working fine.

[VernDog]

I have a Circa 1998 Compaq Armada 1750. Reading my notes and googling, I found some information.

In my BIOS, I needed to nake sure the sound is activated, which it was, and also alter some IO, DMA configurations. Also, I need support from the kernal sound-support, namely sound.o, soundcore.s and the Soundblaster-module, sb.o.

Here are the requirements for the IO, DMA:

I/O-Port=0x220
IRQ=5
DMA=0
MPU-I/O=0x330

In using Debian it was stated that the /etc/modules.conf contain the following:

alias sound-slot-0 sb
options sound dmabuf=1
alias synth0 opl3 io=0x388
options sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=0 mpu_io=0x330

It's been a while since I had a Linux distro installed, but I recall that a Slackware and Arch and PCLinuxOS all had sound working.

I have compiled the kernel for another computer for a learning experience and to fix another problem. I don't know if that's what's needed and even advised here. Maybe just adding the modules listed would work.

Thanks for your help.

PS- Last night I finally got DSL imbedded to run and tried the XMMS that is part of DSL. It too complained of not seeing my sound card. Interesting is that on reboot the is several lines of text trying to modprobe the sound card but couldn't find the module.