Debian -> sound modules

Hello,

I'm rather a newbie to Linux (and to this list) and I've been trying already some different distro's. In my opinion, Debian as (by far) the best one (I've tried RedHet, Slackware, which I didn't like and SuSe, which I think is also OK), but there are a few things I can't get right. I have both a desktop and a laptop... and after a few months, I would like to get everything working.

1. I just can't get sound working. I installed Woody, but it coming with a kernel which doesn't support sound (as far as I understand all well), so I recompiled the kernel with different sound modules (I compile the 'debian way' and when I 'make menuconfig', I choose some different 'sound modules'). On my desktop, I have a very standard soundblaster (PCI 128, and I know I/O, IRQ, DMA, etc), on my (Dell Inspiron 2650) laptop, it's rather new and I now it's a 'integrated intell sound controller'. What's the problem?
I tried to run sndconfig, but it complains about my kernel. It asks for a kernel at least 2.2... and I use 2.2.20 on my desktop and 2.4.16 on my laptop. I don't get it. I think it searches for a module, sb or snd. When I try to 'insmod' the 'soundblaster' (100% compatible things, actually the ones I need!?) modules, it failes, for some reason or another. I don't know why... So I tried alsa and installed, alsa-headers, alsa-modules (but Debian tells me I have to use alsa-base, so that's what I do), alsa-utils and alsaconf. If I run alsaconf, I can choose some cards and give the right 'parameters', but alsa then it fails again, because 'can't locate module snd'. It's more or less the same story for my laptop... although I have actually no idea which 'modules' I have to choose for the soundcard which is 'integrated'.

2. I want to get to a network with a Windows NT server. I know I have to use samba, but again, some trouble. I didn't manage to mount the filesystem, so I looked for some tools and found one: xsmbrowser. With this thing, I'm able to connect so the server and read all the files etc, but I can't mount the filesystem, even not as root. I really have to be able to mount the filesystem, because I can't print if it's not mounted (I guess). So, it is surely possible to connect to the server and read the stuff, but I really want to know how I have to mount the whole filesystem. I have a password for my own directory (although if I use xsmbrowser, I can read everyones documents with that passwd, but that has something to do with some 'server things', I guess) and I have the password of the administrators (although I'm not really an administrator...).

Any help? Any suggestions? Thanks,

Kurt Sys.

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Comments inline below.

First, if you want detailed help, you need to describe the problem better. "it failes, for some reason or another. I don't know why" is a bit vague to diagnose. There should be an error message if your "insmod" attempt fails, and if it succeeds, then you need to explain waht you mean by "fails" in a bit more detail.

My current kernel (2.4.19, compiled by me. on Sid) runs a stock Soundblaster card using the Ensoniq driver that I compiled in (Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI 97 (ES1371) in Sound, using "make menuconfig"). If you are using the out-of-the-box 2.2.20-compact kernel that Debian-Woody initially installs ... I believer it does not include ANY sound support (it's trimmed down to fit on a boot/rescue floppy), and you need a full-size kernel-image package (or your own compile from kernel-source).

In any case, you should be using modprobe, not insmod ... it will sort out module interdependencies for you (as long as you've compiled the ones you need).

Once again, "I can't mount the filesystem, even not as root" is less informative than your telling us the actual command you enter and the error message, or other actual failure, you get in response. In particular, how does what you WANT to do differ from what you say you CAN do ("connect so the server and read all the files etc")? The "etc" part in particular leaves my mystified.

Do you have smbfs support in your kernel (either compiled in or loaded as a module)?

Details are at the heart of troubleshooting, Provide them in your followup.

--
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA [email protected]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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OK, here it comes (I ran 'modconf' and tried to install a driver/module, such as the '100% soundblaster compatible' one, but some others give the same result, and the ones that don't give 'installation failed' are actually not alright since I get the message that 'device /dev/dsp doesn't exist' if I run 'cat /somepath/somefile.wav > /dev/dsp'):

# /lib/modules/x.x.xx/kernel/drivers/sound/xxxxx.o: init_module: no such device
# Hint: insmod errors can be cause by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters # You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg
# /lib/modules/x.x.xx/kernel/drivers/sound/xxxxx.o: insmod /lib/modules/x.x.xx/kernel/drivers/sound/xxxxx.o failed # /lib/modules/x.x.xx/kernel/drivers/sound/xxxxx.o: insmod xxxxx.o failed
# Installation failed

I'm quite sure my soundblaster is sb 128 PCI and I know the IRQ, IO and other parameters (at least for my desktop). On my laptop, I already get some sound, but it quite often, it's like it's ging in 'overdrive'.

Well... if you use 'menuconfig' (for kernel 2.2.20), you can choose some sound support, including the ones I think I need (100% soundblaster compatible), but I might be wrong. I already compiled the kernel, with the modules (not directly into the kernel), and I try to compile them permanently by using modconf, but this fails.

Yes, I have smbfs support in my kernel and I installed the packages smb, smbclient.

Here comes the command and the 'error messages':

# mount -t smbfs "//hostname/sharename" localmountpath

# 9xx: session request to xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx failed (Called name not present) # 9xx: session request to xxx failed (Called name not present) # Passwd:

I give my password, or password of administrator

# 9xx: session setup failed: ERRDOS - ERRnoacces (acces denied.) # SMB connection failed

I get the same messages if I put '-o username=kurts' (kurts is my username on that server). I also tried different sharenames... And I use the IP-adress of the server, just to be sure.

Now, if I run 'xsmbrowser', I just give in:
the name of the server (or IP-address) for the subnet IP a name for it
the name of the workgroup
advanced options: username and password

If I do this, I can see all the files on the server, all directories, all printers, so, the whole filesystem. I can, again still using 'xsmbrowser', choose to mount the filesystem, or a directory, but it gives the message that it's not possible: If I do this as root, the message I get is that only root can mount, If I do this as root, I have to check the message (but I first need to be logged in as root... which is not the case right now.)

I hope I provided you some more details right now... As you can see, I'm really new :-).

tnx,
Kurt.

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Ok. With some additional details provided, let's see what I can do to help, at least with your sound problems. Inline below.

If you need to post another followup, please:

A. Be as specific as you possibly can about what the sound
hardware is.
B. Be very clear which system (the desktop or the laptop) any
particular bit of information comes from.
C. Provide unedited reporting of commands and responses (except
for passwords, but NO other exceptions, please).

At 12:18 PM 12/27/02 +0100, Kurt Sys wrote:
[...]

I'm not actually familiar with modconf; does it really report its results substituting "x.x.xx" for the kernel version? And what is module "xxxxx.o"? Is that gobbledygook out of modconf, a module I'm unacquainted with, or your unwise attempts to edit the output (General Rule #1: NEVER edit error output except for passwords, and make it unambiguously clear when you do even that).

The "no such device" response on the first line usually means that the module did not find hardware to initialize. So it suggests that "xxxxx.o" is not the right module for the sound hardware on whichever of your systems you are reporting about here.

As to "/dev/dsp" ... I can't tell from what you sent whether the /dev/ entry itself exists or not ("ls -l /dev/dsp*"). I'm not even certain which of your two systems you get this message from. If it doesn't exist, you'll need to create it, which you can do manually with "mknod". There is probably a Debian package that sets up this sound stuff (the needed /dev/* devices, I mean), but if so, I forget its name. If it does exist but using it returns that message, that means that /dev/dsp is not pointing to any real, physical device on the system (that is, you don't have a working sound module installed in the kernel).

I don't really know what "overdrive" is "like". Do you perhaps mean it plays at double speed? (General Rule #2: Describe symptoms as exactly as you possibly can. Metaphorical trouble reports are hard to interpret.) If so, this is indicative of the wrong module ... one that *almost* works but isn't really right for your sound card.

Yes, a *custom-compiled* 2.2.20 (or even a full kernel-image package for it) will have the soundcard modules. Not using modconf myself, I don't know how to use it to "compile them permanently" (and the man page doesn't tell me). I'm not even sure what the phrease means.

From what you wrote here, my best *guess* is that you have not yet found the right module for your sound card. One approach is simply brute force -- compile all the soundcard modules, then modprobe (NOT insmod or modconf) them one by one until you find one that works. Then add that one to /etc/modules .

As to your SMB problems ... the additional info you provided suggested nothing to me. The (presumed) edits you did even made it hard for me to figure out what it was saying in places. So I'll leave that one for someone else to take a try at.

[rest deleted]

--
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA [email protected]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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OK, thanks, but apparently, I have to try again... So let's try sound on my laptop. I don't have much information about the hardware, but this is it (and I've added the 'source of the information' between brackets):

SoundBlaster® and Windows® sound compatible (website Dell) Sigmatel 9700 audio controller (Laptop users manual) Integrated Intell Audio (Windows)
82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio controller (Windows)
PCI bus 0 device 31 function 5 (windows)
IRQ=09 (windows)
IO = 1C00 1CFF (windows)
IO = 1880 18BF (windows)

Now, the output of lspci -v:

-----

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset Host Bridge (rev 05)
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00f3
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
Memory at ec000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=64M]
Capabilities: [e4] #09 [c104]
Capabilities: [a0] AGP version 2.0

00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82845 845 (Brookdale) Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 05) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])

	Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, fast devsel, latency 96
	Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=64
	Memory behind bridge: e0000000-e7ffffff
	Prefetchable memory behind bridge: f0000000-f7ffffff

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801CA/CAM USB (Hub #1) (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00f3
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 10 I/O ports at 1800 [size=32]

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801CA/CAM USB (Hub #2) (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00f3
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 11 I/O ports at 1820 [size=32]

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BAM/CAM PCI Bridge (rev 42) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])

	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
	Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=168
	I/O behind bridge: 00003000-00003fff
	Memory behind bridge: e8000000-e80fffff

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801CAM ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0

00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801CAM IDE U100 (rev 02) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00f3
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
I/O ports at <unassigned> [size=8]
I/O ports at <unassigned> [size=4]
I/O ports at <unassigned> [size=8]
I/O ports at <unassigned> [size=4]
I/O ports at 1840 [size=16]
Memory at 20000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [disabled] [size=1K]

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801CA/CAM SMBus (rev 02)
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00f3
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 10
I/O ports at 1860 [size=32]

00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio (rev 02)

	Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00f3
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 10
	I/O ports at 1c00 [size=256]
	I/O ports at 1880 [size=64]

00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corp. 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Modem (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Generic])

	Subsystem: Conexant: Unknown device 5421
	Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 10
	I/O ports at 2400 [size=256]
	I/O ports at 2000 [size=128]

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 Go] (rev b2) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00f3
Flags: 66Mhz, medium devsel, IRQ 10
Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M] Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M] Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [44] AGP version 2.0

02:01.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX/TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)
Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00f3
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 80, IRQ 10 I/O ports at 3000 [size=128]
Memory at e8000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128] Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [dc] Power Management version 2

02:04.0 CardBus bridge: O2 Micro, Inc.: Unknown device 6972

	Subsystem: Dell Computer Corporation: Unknown device 00f3
	Flags: bus master, stepping, slow devsel, latency 168, IRQ 10
	Memory at e8001000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
	Bus: primary=02, secondary=03, subordinate=06, sec-latency=176
	I/O window 0: 00000000-00000003
	I/O window 1: 00000000-00000003
	16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001

-----

And my /etc/modules file:

-----

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time. #
# This file should contain the names of kernel modules that are

# to be loaded at boot time, one per line.  Comments begin with
# a "#", and everything on the line after them are ignored.

af_packet
dummy
ntfs
lp
apm
serial_cs
ide-cd
ide-floppy
3c59x
3c589_cs
sg
imm
i810_audio

-----

Finally, the 'overdrive' sound, it's not 'double speed' (I guess), but it's a typical 'noise-signal' sound. So:

cat /usr/share/sndconfig/sample.au > /dev/dsp

gives such a noise-signal (overdrive). I really don't know how I can describe it another way... I'm sorry about that. The same is true for /usr/share/sndconfig/sample2.au and some small wav-files (not all of them).

Some additional, less important (I think) comments inline...

tnx,
Kurt.

Ray Olszewski wrote:
[...]

It's my unwise attempt... I just tried several sound modules, and I didn't think it was necessary to put everytime the same output. So, the xxxxx should be replaced by a module, such as VIA82xxx_audio. The x.x.xx should be replaced by 2.4.16 for my laptop.
I now installed module i810_audio as the only sound module.

Yups, I did get that one. So I didn't include these modules.

/dev/dsp exists. That's not the problem here.

Yups, I get that one. overdrive here means thus a noise-signal. And for now, don't bother the desktop (sb 128 PCI etc). Let's get things to work on my laptop first, because on my desktop, it's somewhat harder, I think, since I've got other problems there.

That's what I've been trying to do. At least, I tried to compile the kernel with all soundcard modules. This didn't work; I could only compile the kernel if I removed some of the sound modules (that's the problem I have on my desktop, but that's for tomorrow, 'cause I haven't got my desktop here).
Anyway, I don't think that's a problem. The module I have now (in /etc/modules) gives 'some sound'. Only the IRQ setting is different than the IRQ setting of the soundcard in windows. Could that be the problem? And how can I solve it?

Ok, I understand that... So let's take one problem; I'll wait for this samba-thing.

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OK. Extracting the soundcard-specific info from what you posted gives us this:

The Soundblaster reference is marketing bafflegab, but the 82801CA/CAM tells us what you really have. And it seems that you have the correct sound module (i810_audio) for it, based on checking this URL:

http://www.systura.com/linux/thinkpadr31.html

This is confirmed by your ability to send sound output to /dev/dsp ... it believes it is connected to *something*.

Now, with this in place, you report this "problem":

I *think* you are saying that sometimes this procedure plays .wav viles correctly, but sometimes it does not ... and it "never" (in quotes because I don't know how many different files you tried) plays .au files correctly.

At this point, I would not rely on "cat" to get the details of sound right. "cat" is able to verify that the sound device is present and configured, but it is, to put it mildly, not the best way to play music. The Linux Sound HowTo (http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Sound-HOWTO/index.html, section 6.2) notes this:

"Sun workstation (.au) sound files can be played by sending them to the /dev/audio device. Raw samples can be sent to /dev/dsp. This will generally give poor results though, and using a program such as play is preferable, as it will recognize most file types and set the sound card to the correct sampling rate, etc."

So I'd suggest you install xmms (or mpg123 or something else you find congenial) and see if it plays sound files (probably .mp3 or .ogg files, though I believe xmms can handle .wav too) properly. If not, look at (and send us relevant portions of, if need be) the error output (run the app from an xterm on the console, and redirect STDERR output someplace useful).

[details deleted]

--
-------------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"--------
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, California, USA [email protected]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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