Bug 48230 – no sound with kernel 2.6

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

[Description Florian Effenberger 2004-04-18 08:47:24 UTC]

With kernel 2.6, I have no sound anymore. lspci says

00:0e.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 02)

which I used without any problems with snd-ens1370 on kernel 2.4.25. However, with 2.6.6-rc1 (genkernel compiled with hotplug), I can hear no sound. The correct module seems to be snd-ens1371, which is detected by hotplug.

I have to manually load the snd-pcm-oss module to get /dev/dsp.

XMMS, KDE3 and co. plays, but I cannot hear anything. Is there any new module I have to load? I read something about unmuting my sound card and enabling OSS emulation, but I don't know.

I would like to use OSS, not alsa.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.




Portage 2.0.50-r6 (default-x86-2004.0, gcc-3.3.2, glibc-2.3.2-r9, 2.6.6-rc1) 
================================================================= 
System uname: 2.6.6-rc1 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2600+ 
Gentoo Base System version 1.4.9 
Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.58-r1 
Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.3 
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" 
AUTOCLEAN="yes" 
CFLAGS="-O3 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer" 
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" 
COMPILER="gcc3" 
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" 
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" 
CXXFLAGS="-O3 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer" 
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" 
FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache sandbox" 
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.seren.com/gentoo http://mirrors.tds.net/gentoo 
ftp://mirrors.tds.net/gentoo http://128.213.5.34/gentoo/" 
MAKEOPTS="-j2" 
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" 
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" 
PORTDIR="/usr/portage" 
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" 
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" 
USE="3dnow X Xaw3d aalib accessibility acl acpi aim alsa apm arts avi berkdb 
bidi bonobo caps cdr cjk crypt cups curl dga doc dvb dvd dvdr emacs emacs-w3 
encode esd ethereal evo fam fbcon flac flash foomaticdb gb gd gdbm ggi gif 
gnome gphoto2 gpm gtk gtk2 gtkhtml icq imagemagick imap imlib ipv6 jabber java 
jpeg junit kde ladcca lcms ldap leim lesstif libg++ libgda libwww lirc mad 
mbox mcal memlimit mikmod mmx motif mozilla mpeg mpi msn mysql nas ncurses nls 
nocd odbc oggvorbis opengl oscar oss pam pda pdflib perl png ppds prelude 
python qt quicktime readline samba sasl scanner sdl slang slp snmp socks5 
speex spell sse ssl svga svgalib tcltk tcpd tetex theora tiff truetype unicode 
usb vhosts videos wmf wxwindows x86 xface xinerama xml xml2 xmms xosd xv yahoo 
zlib"

[Comment 1 Eric Brown 2004-04-18 19:12:27 UTC]

i'm not sure about using OSS with genkernel.. but if you use "make menuconfig" in /usr/src/linux, you can go to device drivers -> sound -> OSS (enable it)...this would require you to build the kernel afterwards, and put the new bzImage in /boot (probably also requiring you to alter your GRUB/LILO config to stop using genkernel)

[Comment 2 Florian Effenberger 2004-04-19 12:21:33 UTC]

I tried "genkernel --menuconfig all" and "Open Sound System (DEPRECATED)" is not compiled in. Neither as a module, nor directly in the kernel.

Is it disabled in genkernel compiled kernels by default?
Could that be the reason that I can load the module but I don't hear anything?

[Comment 3 Florian Effenberger 2004-04-20 10:07:48 UTC]

I tried it with menuconfig, enabled OSS and my sound chip (es1370 and es1371), but I still don't hear anything. dmesg only shows es1370 / es1371 (not snd-ens1370/1371) have been loaded, but no card.

What could be wrong, what modules might I need to load?

[Comment 4 Florian Effenberger 2004-05-01 00:37:27 UTC]

Hello, anyone out there? ;-)

[Comment 5 Jonathan Fors 2004-05-06 11:41:25 UTC]

You might have forgotten one annoying step that I forgot when I was new to alsa. Start the alsamixer, then go to the "Master" bar and press "M". That would unmute the channel if you see two big M:s disappear on top of the bar. Do the same with "PCM". 

[Comment 6 Florian Effenberger 2004-05-06 12:32:08 UTC]

Thanks for the feedback.
However, I do NOT want to use Alsa, but OSS instead ;-)

[Comment 7 Jonathan Fors 2004-05-06 12:52:28 UTC]

That's strange... why's that? ALSA is IMHO so much better than OSS. Just curious, you know ;)

[Comment 8 Florian Effenberger 2004-05-06 13:03:13 UTC]

;-)
Yes I know. But I have some systems I'd like to migrate to 2.6 smoothly without changing to much on the driver side.

[Comment 9 Michal Januszewski (RETIRED) 2004-06-20 05:07:34 UTC]

I have the very same soundcard and everything has been working flawlessly since 2.6.0. My advice to you is to drop OSS. I know you want to stick with it, but it's deprecated, and ALSA has full support for your soundcard. And you won't have to change any settings if you enable the OSS compatibility options.

Other than that, you can try compiling the drivers into the kernel and checking whether they work this way. It might be also be wise to start aumix or similar program and check that everything is OK with the volumes. It's amazing how often this can be the root of sound problems ;)

[Comment 10 Florian Effenberger 2004-06-20 05:17:05 UTC]

I tried out ALSA in 2.6 and it works fine. Thanks for all comments. ;-) I guess I'll close this bug now.