[NBLUG/talk] Soundblaster Audigy & Mandrake 9.1

[ME]

Ron Balch said:
> This is my first time participating in a LUG.  So I apologize if I am
> doing this wrong.  Anyways, I just installed Mandrake 9.1, and I cannot
> get my Audigy Platinum sound card to produce any sound.  It works fine
> when I boot into Windows XP so I know it isn't the hardware.  Odd thing is
> that I can see it starting the Audigy services upon boot up like it knows
> that it is there.  Thank you for any assistance.

Nope, you are doing "the right thing" as this list is also useful for
discussing technical issues with Linux.

Assuming nobody else has responded to you before me, please permit me to
welcome you to NBLUG!

Welcome to NBLUG!

As to this issue you are experiencing... There are many ways to go about
trying to solve this.
(I'll include 3 suggestions for direction in solving this.)

*** First, you are lucky! We have an installfest coming up. :-)

 (Original Announcement from Greg Dickerson, our new InstallFest
Coordinator.)
http://www.nblug.org/pipermail/announce/2003q1/000136.html

 (To sign up and for more information)
http://www.nblug.org/installfest/

If you sign up for the installfest, you can bring your computer down to
our installfest on April 19 (at SSU) and someone can try to help you with
this. Often this is ideal, as the results of applying one tool to test for
problems tells you where to go next.

*** Second, you can try google for this, as others may have had this
problem too. Sometimes you will find posts where someone will say, "I am
running (Linux Distro) and found installing (or configuring) package (name
here) fixed the problem.

(For example, after doing a simple google search under their linux section
( http://www.google.com/linux ) I did a search based on the probelms you
reported and foun from this URL:
http://ask.slashdot.org/articles/03/03/25/1621234.shtml?tid=106&tid=147

This text (from Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 25, @12:42PM)
[chop]
>  I don't have major complaints about the installation procedure,
> except maybe a single bug I encountered: the installation would pick
> the audigy() driver for my first generation SBLive! instead of the
> emu10k() driver, and it would not turn on ALSA on boot by default. I
> installed Mandrake 9.1 twice and both times the same problem
> happened, I had no sound at all, until I turned on ALSA and picked
> the emu10k() driver manually (older versions of Mandrake didn't have
> problem with this card).
[chop]
That sounds like what you describe.

If that does not help, or you want to try something different...

*** Third, you can try to work with us onlist if you wish. This is
perfectly fine, and common for NBLUG. We have archives of messages where
linux related topics are discussed, and technical support items are also
discussed. (There are many examples in our archives:
http://www.nblug.org/pipermail/talk/ )

Working out problems onlist is good for archives, and helps other people
"googling" for similar solutions.

I will assume you have done all of the standard tech support things: (is
each thing plugged in to the right spot, etc./)

First, the most common problem is that of default mixer settings. If there
is a driver (really, more likely a module) set for the sound card to work,
it may have initialized the settings for output to be too low in volume to
generate a signal. If this is the case, you can try to locate a mixer. In
Debian, I use the console/tty based "aumix". You may have a package with
aumix that you can use. Consider installing it and then run it:
# aumix
(then use the arrow keys to navigate what you want increase, paying
special attention to the "PCM" and top line "Volume" as these are most
commonly used for most audio output. When you are done with aumix, you can
press "q" to quit and exit.)

You may have another graphical/GUI based mixer that also have support for
control of the master volume and the PCM volume as well, you can try that
instead.

Keep trying to set the volume higher to see if you can get sound. If you
set the volume up higher and still have no sound output, then there are
other things to try.

Install a package for "lsof" and then as root:
# lsof | grep dsp > /tmp/devopen.txt
# lsof | grep audio >> /tmp/devopen.txt
# lsof | grep sequencer >> /tmp/devopen.txt
(lsof is to "list open files" check out the man pages. What we are doing
here, is trying to see if there is a process that has opened your audio
devices and is blocking use to other apps. Things like "esd" and other
daemonized sound services are examples of processes that might be listed.)

As root, run "dmesg" and send the output to a file:(sample:)
# dmesg > /tmp/dmesg.txt
(This should provide an output of many of the items listed in the boot
messages during boot by your kernel. If your sound card was found, then I
would expect to see something referring to it in this.)

As root, run "lspci" and send the output to a file:(sample:)
# lspci > /tmp/lspci.txt
(This lists pci based devices know on your system. If your sound card is
known to be ISA or is not integrated/pci then this may not be much help.)

Then, to see what processes you have running just in case you have
something "odd" running, could you also:
# ps -auxw > /tmp/proc.txt

Maybe even look at what modules are installed:
# lsmod > /tmp/mod.txt

Next, could you tar up all of these files (and compress) all in one:
# tar -czvf /tmp/soundissue.tar.gz /tmp/devopen.txt \
/tmp/dmesg.txt /tmp/lspci /tmp/proc.txt /tmp/mod.txt

And then reply to this and attach /tmp/soundissue.tar.gz to youre message
in your next reply.

Not all of these files are likely to be necessary, but they should permit
tracking down most common problems beyond the simple mixer issue. We
probably only need the output from one of these, but knowing which one is
difficult without access to the machine.

HTH,
-ME

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