I think I may have shot myself in the foot while compiling my kernel and
removing stuff I didn't need... I think I removed alsa support... but
there's no option labelled "ALSA" ... there's lots of sound options, but
none specifically ALSA...

(slackware-current from about three weeks ago 2.4.31 - basically slack 10.2)

I'm going to have another peek in the morning with a generic config file....

The box is an Athlon64 with an SBLive that was running a slack 8.1-9.1
upgrade when it was an AthlonXP so when I replaced the board I decided
to reload slack on a nice clean partition. ALSA used to work... but I
don't even remember what I did... all I remember is getting sound to
work has always been a bit of a production for various reasons.

alsaconfig can't find the card either... so I think I broke something.

Ray wrote:

> I think I may have shot myself in the foot while compiling my kernel and
> removing stuff I didn't need... I think I removed alsa support... but
> there's no option labelled "ALSA" ... there's lots of sound options, but
> none specifically ALSA...

ALSA is built into the kernel, but only starting from 2.6.x, which I suggest
for desktop use.

Device Drivers -> Sound -> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture.

You won't find it in 2.4.x.

Cheers,

Niki Kovacs
--
I'm not as think as you stoned I am.

Ray wrote in <jBMYe.248868$Hk.220129@pd7tw1no>:

> I think I may have shot myself in the foot while compiling my kernel and
> removing stuff I didn't need... I think I removed alsa support... but
> there's no option labelled "ALSA" ... there's lots of sound options, but
> none specifically ALSA...

The sound options in 2.4 are all for OSS. If you want to use ALSA you have
to leave them out, or at least have them as modules, and then compile
alsa-driver yourself with your new kernel.
>
> (slackware-current from about three weeks ago 2.4.31 - basically slack
> 10.2)
>
> I'm going to have another peek in the morning with a generic config
> file....
>
> The box is an Athlon64 with an SBLive that was running a slack 8.1-9.1
> upgrade when it was an AthlonXP so when I replaced the board I decided
> to reload slack on a nice clean partition. ALSA used to work... but I
> don't even remember what I did... all I remember is getting sound to
> work has always been a bit of a production for various reasons.
>
> alsaconfig can't find the card either... so I think I broke something.
>

Get the alsa-driver source from www.alsa-project.org and compile and install
it is probably your best bet. Make sure you get a version matching your
alsa-utils and alsa-lib.

Niki Kovacs wrote:
> Ray wrote:
>
>
>>I think I may have shot myself in the foot while compiling my kernel and
>>removing stuff I didn't need... I think I removed alsa support... but
>>there's no option labelled "ALSA" ... there's lots of sound options, but
>>none specifically ALSA...
>
>
> ALSA is built into the kernel, but only starting from 2.6.x, which I suggest
> for desktop use.
>
> Device Drivers -> Sound -> Advanced Linux Sound Architecture.
>
> You won't find it in 2.4.x.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Niki Kovacs

now I'm even more confused.
I have a stock Slackware 9.1 box (2.4.22 kernel) that's got a SB128 PCI
and it's running alsa... but I'll be darned if I can figure out what's
loading it. Hotplug? /etc/modules.conf is zero bytes...
/etc/rc.d/rc.modules is all commented out except for agpgart and ide-scsi...

lsmod:
Module Size Used by Not tainted
smbfs 36048 1 (autoclean)
snd-pcm-oss 37252 0 (unused)
snd-mixer-oss 11992 1 [snd-pcm-oss]
uhci 24496 0 (unused)
usbcore 58400 1 [uhci]
3c59x 26832 1
snd-ens1371 11596 1
gameport 1452 0 [snd-ens1371]
snd-pcm 55904 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-ens1371]
snd-timer 13252 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-page-alloc 6004 0 [snd-pcm]
snd-rawmidi 12512 0 [snd-ens1371]
snd-seq-device 3920 0 [snd-rawmidi]
snd-ac97-codec 37240 0 [snd-ens1371]
snd 27460 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-ens1371
snd-pcm snd-timer snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device snd-ac97-codec]
soundcore 3332 6 [snd]
ide-scsi 9424 0
agpgart 39576 0 (unused)

so, I'm still confused how I managed to disable alsa on the new box if
it's not got anything to do with kernel compilation...

looking through /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa it's looking for a /proc/asound
directory, which exists on this box but not the other two... and the
only thing I thought that would create that would be the kernel.

I've read about 100 pages and am making myself MORE confused...

Ray

Ray wrote:
> I think I may have shot myself in the foot while compiling my kernel and
> removing stuff I didn't need... I think I removed alsa support... but
> there's no option labelled "ALSA" ... there's lots of sound options, but
> none specifically ALSA...
>
> (slackware-current from about three weeks ago 2.4.31 - basically slack
> 10.2)
>
> I'm going to have another peek in the morning with a generic config
> file....
>
> The box is an Athlon64 with an SBLive that was running a slack 8.1-9.1
> upgrade when it was an AthlonXP so when I replaced the board I decided
> to reload slack on a nice clean partition. ALSA used to work... but I
> don't even remember what I did... all I remember is getting sound to
> work has always been a bit of a production for various reasons.
>
> alsaconfig can't find the card either... so I think I broke something.
>


I ran into the same problem a little while ago. The easiest solution I
found was to compile and install the kernel as usual then reinstall the
alsa package from the cd. Good luck.

vYv

MikeyD wrote:
> Ray wrote in <jBMYe.248868$Hk.220129@pd7tw1no>:
>
>
>>I think I may have shot myself in the foot while compiling my kernel and
>>removing stuff I didn't need... I think I removed alsa support... but
>>there's no option labelled "ALSA" ... there's lots of sound options, but
>>none specifically ALSA...
>
>
> The sound options in 2.4 are all for OSS. If you want to use ALSA you have
> to leave them out, or at least have them as modules, and then compile
> alsa-driver yourself with your new kernel.
>

oh... does this mean that by recompiling my kernel I broke ALSA and have
to recompile it as well and that's why it's not working?

would this be a shared library thing or kernel interface or ??? - I'm
still confused how ALSA actually loads if it's not loaded in any rc
scripts and not compiled into the kernel.

Ray
(trying to both fix the problem and understand how it all works at the
same time.)

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

In alt.os.linux.slackware, MikeyD dared to utter,
> Get the alsa-driver source from www.alsa-project.org and compile and install
> it is probably your best bet. Make sure you get a version matching your
> alsa-utils and alsa-lib.

I would argue not to bother with downloading driver source code from
the alsa project. This is already available on your Slackware CDs in
the source directory.

slackware-current/source/l/alsa-driver/

Whenever you compile a new kernel, you should ensure that the alsa
modules have been compiled properly as well. Basically, if you cahnge
kernel versions, or for any reason the modules directoy changes (from
say /lib/modules/2.4.31 to /lib/modules/2.4.31-smp) then you will also
need to compile the alsa modules and install them in the new modules
directory.

With Slackware, this is very easy. Simply modify the SlackBuild file
and ensure that it points to the right kernel, incriment the BUILD
variable in there, and run it. You'll end up with a new package under
/tmp/ that you should install with upgradepkg. Voila!

- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 17:50:58 +0000, Ray wrote:

> oh... does this mean that by recompiling my kernel I broke ALSA and have
> to recompile it as well and that's why it's not working?
>
> would this be a shared library thing or kernel interface or ??? - I'm
> still confused how ALSA actually loads if it's not loaded in any rc
> scripts and not compiled into the kernel.
>
> Ray
> (trying to both fix the problem and understand how it all works at the
> same time.)

It is because the new kernel can't use the old modules. Slackware will
try to load the modules on start-up through the /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa script.
Read that and it will explain all.

Mike

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

In alt.os.linux.slackware, Ray dared to utter,
>> The sound options in 2.4 are all for OSS. If you want to use ALSA you have
>> to leave them out, or at least have them as modules, and then compile
>> alsa-driver yourself with your new kernel.
>
> oh... does this mean that by recompiling my kernel I broke ALSA and have
> to recompile it as well and that's why it's not working?

Most likely, yes.

> would this be a shared library thing or kernel interface or ??? - I'm
> still confused how ALSA actually loads if it's not loaded in any rc
> scripts and not compiled into the kernel.

Because it's a kernel module, just not one included with the kernel
itself. Look at it this way. I make a piece of software (kernel) and
you want to extend it. However, I don't want for whatever reasons to
include your extension in my software, but my software was built with a
plugin (modular) architecture. So, you make a plugin (module) and just
load it directly into my software (kernel).

> (trying to both fix the problem and understand how it all works at the
> same time.)

That is the path to much slack.

- --
It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise,
Than for a man to hear the song of fools.
Ecclesiastes 7:5
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Mike Denhoff wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 17:50:58 +0000, Ray wrote:
>
>
>>oh... does this mean that by recompiling my kernel I broke ALSA and have
>>to recompile it as well and that's why it's not working?
>>
>>would this be a shared library thing or kernel interface or ??? - I'm
>>still confused how ALSA actually loads if it's not loaded in any rc
>>scripts and not compiled into the kernel.
>>
>>Ray
>>(trying to both fix the problem and understand how it all works at the
>>same time.)
>
>
> It is because the new kernel can't use the old modules. Slackware will
> try to load the modules on start-up through the /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa script.
> Read that and it will explain all.
>
> Mike

I've looked in /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa and that's what's still confusing me...
my broken machine has no /proc/asound and the modprobe -c returns
nothing, so it does nothing... which is why I still was unsure
What/Where ALSA was loading from.

What I think the problem is on the "broken" machines I need to run the
install script from the alsa package to put libasound.so.* back into
/usr/lib which is then "automatically" loaded by the kernel?

So, I reinstalled the acpi*.tgz packages. Fixed the A64 - ALSA found
the onboard sound and the SBLive, so I'm happy and I even think I know
what I did to fix it.

Now I just need to see if I can get ALSA to detect this stupid Vibra16C
plug and play card... (yes, it's an ISA card...) if not I know the sb
drivers work for it and that'll be good enough - I mostly wanted to fix
my "good" box and it was a bonus if ALSA would work with this old junker.

And yes, this is one of the reasons why I use slack ... when something
is broken I need to know more than just "reboot and reinstall" and slack
is occasionally frustrating because the guts aren't hidden, but I like
to see the guts because it helps me troubleshoot other stuff later when
you know how it's all put together.

Ray