banjo

I am stuck at work again with no access to Linux, so I will have to take another look when I get home. It would be way cool if I could understand this well enough to work through these issues, but I am still baffled about how it all hangs together. To summarize the situation, the PCI bus seems to see the sound device OK, but something in the kernel does not. That goes along with the contention that my version of Mandy does not "support" the G41 chipset on the MOBO. My question is... What is it in the kernel that "supports" a chipset on the MOBO if it isn't the device drivers? Is there a set of drivers that interact specifically with the MOBO chipset? Last night I looked on my system for /dev/MAKEDEV and there was no such file found. So I guess that is an old system that is now deprecated. I think maybe I need to study the workings of devfs next. Thanks to all for pointing me to useful info. Banjo (_)=='=~

OK, I entered "aplay -L" and nothing comes out. I entered "aplay -l" and I get aplay: device_list:207: no soundcards found... $ play cairo-town.mp3 ALSA lib confmisc.c:768:(parse_card) cannot find card '0' ALSA lib conf.c:3513:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_card_driver returned error: No such file or directory ALSA lib confmisc.c:392:(snd_func_concat) error evaluating strings ALSA lib conf.c:3513:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_concat returned error: No such file or directory ALSA lib confmisc.c:1251:(snd_func_refer) error evaluating name ALSA lib conf.c:3513:(_snd_config_evaluate) function snd_func_refer returned error: No such file or directory ALSA lib conf.c:3985:(snd_config_expand) Evaluate error: No such file or directory ALSA lib pcm.c:2144:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default play soxio: Can't open output file `default': cannot open audio device Which confirms that there isn't any sound card. Yet lspci shows a sound card $ lspci 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01) Am I missing a device in /dev? I went poking around on www.tldp.org and the Sound_HOWTO says to look for /dev/dsp $ ll /dev/dsp ls: cannot access /dev/dsp: No such file or directory Is this old information that has been deprecated by some newer device? $ ll /dev/snd crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 1 2009-12-16 09:34 seq crw-rw----+ 1 root audio 116, 33 2009-12-16 09:33 timer Anybody know what devices I need for a sound card? What creates the devices? Edit: Just did a lsmod | grep intel and got the following: snd_hda_intel 347256 0 snd_pcm 67204 2 snd_pcm_oss,snd_hda_intel snd_page_alloc 8456 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm snd_hwdep 7492 1 snd_hda_intel snd 45444 9 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm Looks like the driver is installed by default but cannot see the device. Banjo (_)=='=~

I think I remember having to disable pulseaudio when I put this computer together in 2008 to get the sound to work. I don't remember the details. I am not at my Linux computer now, so I can't try any of this until I get home. I have not changed the settings in the OS, but the hardware was swapped out under the system that was installed on the previous MOBO. I expected it to be confused when it booted. It is. Thanks for all the info. Banjo (_)=='=~

I found a web page that tells how to determine if a running kernel will support a device. How To Tell if PCI Hardware Is Supported I followed the steps on the page. # lspci 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01) OK fine. Get vendor and device codes. # lspci -n | grep 00:1b.0 00:1b.0 0403: 8086:27d8 (rev 01) Kewl. Just like on the web page. Use the model id to search driver, as follows: # grep 27d8 /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/modules.pcimap snd-hda-intel 0x00008086 0x000027d8 0xffffffff 0xffffffff 0x00000000 0x00000000 0x0 So far so good. This is exactly what is shown on the page. Get more information about the module # modinfo snd-hda-intel| egrep 'description|filename|depends' filename: /lib/modules/2.6.24.7-desktop-2mnb/kernel/sound/pci/hda/snd-hda-intel.ko.gz description: Intel HDA driver depends: snd-pcm,snd-page-alloc,snd,snd-hwdep Looks like it is all there. Let's load it. # modprobe snd-hda-intel No response. Is it loaded? # modprobe -l | grep intel /lib/modules/2.6.24.7-desktop-2mnb/kernel/drivers/char/agp/intel-agp.ko.gz /lib/modules/2.6.24.7-desktop-2mnb/kernel/drivers/char/hw_random/intel-rng.ko.gz /lib/modules/2.6.24.7-desktop-2mnb/kernel/drivers/mtd/maps/intel_vr_nor.ko.gz /lib/modules/2.6.24.7-desktop-2mnb/kernel/drivers/video/intelfb/intelfb.ko.gz /lib/modules/2.6.24.7-desktop-2mnb/kernel/drivers/kvm/kvm-intel.ko.gz /lib/modules/2.6.24.7-desktop-2mnb/kernel/sound/pci/snd-intel8x0m.ko.gz /lib/modules/2.6.24.7-desktop-2mnb/kernel/sound/pci/hda/snd-hda-intel.ko.gz /lib/modules/2.6.24.7-desktop-2mnb/kernel/sound/pci/snd-intel8x0.ko.gz There it is. Next to last in the list. When I run Kaffeine, I get a message that none of the audio drivers could initialize. What am I missing? I am so confused. Banjo (_)=='=~

Thanks for the pointer. I will go look at it later. And the answer is "yes", I am keeping the old OS to avoid KDE 4. I tried running the Live CD of 2009 with KDE 4 and it really sucked. It ate resources like crazy. All the plasmas crashed often. There was no desktop with my shortcuts on it, and instead there was some other "paradigm" that makes no sense to me. So I stuck with 2008.1. I don't understand why new kernels are required in order to get new drivers. Drivers were invented to avoid the problem of having to rebuild the OS when the hardware changed. Now it seems that we have gone back to the bad old days when the OS had to be repaired to accept new hardware. So I guess I am missing something. But it is what it is, I guess. Update on the MOBO: I am back online by getting a Roswill RC-402 card ($7.99 at Newegg) and stuffing it into one of the PCI slots. Works fine. It came in as eth2, even though we disabled the onboard in the BIOS. The sound card shows up as: 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01) The CPU temperature sense does not work. I suspect that is drivers too?? My son says that Mandy 2008.1 does not support the North Bridge of the G41 chipset. Holy Moly! I just built this thing in September 2008! Boy stuff goes stale fast these days. I might have to look into upgrading Mandy, although I really was happy with what I have. Thanks to everybody for the help. Banjo (_)=='=~

Brand new board from Newegg. I have thought of returning it, but I have already been down a week since the MSI board fried itself.... and I do not want another Foxconn board to mess with and do more damage. If I can get back online for a while I can then perhaps take my time to order a real mother board and a new HSF. The stock Intel fan is also a POS with those stupid push pins. It is also broken now, and forced onto the board. I have been told that my Mandy 2008.1 will not support the newer G41 chipset, which is why the sound does not work. I guess I need updated drivers? But the NIC hardware is definitely not there. I have a cheap PCI NIC coming from Newegg tomorrow to see if I can get my beautiful computer back. After that, we will see what the traffic will bear. Thanks for all the help. Banjo (_)=='=~

Now ya tell me.... :o It was an MSI board that fried itself and left me in this mess. I am considering starting over (again) and ordering a Gigabyte board and a new heatsink (the Foxconn board broke the one I have). My CPU seems to be OK. I hate spending the $$$, but the sound doesn't work on this board either. If I can't get the sound to work I will not be happy. That could be just a driver issue because the system can see the sound controller. Banjo (_)=='=~

Here is another brief side issue that might be of interest. The repaired computer is now noticeably faster than it has been lately. Processing gets done instantly that used to take several seconds to accomplish. When we opened the crate after the smoke event, we saw that the CPU heat sink fins were totally clogged with dust. I mean, completely clogged. No air was getting through that mess at all. I suspect that the brave Intel Core Duo was always clocking itself down trying to cool off and save its life, and the extra heat somehow caused the MOBO part to fail first. Just a guess. I think it was running in the low 50's Centigrade, although I had not looked at it recently. When we mounted the CPU and heat sink again, we used Arctic Silver on it since the original heat pad was used up. We also cleaned it out. I think that it is now running much cooler than it was, although I have not been able to get a valid CPU temp to display yet. The BIOS at boot time said it was 26 C. I don't know what it is after running a while. Anyway, the lesson learned is that Spring Cleaning should include the heat sink in the computer as well. I suspect that I could have avoided this entire mess had I known that. BTW, I am currently typing this on my old Celeron system from 2003, and it still cranks, and I have never cleaned out the heat sink or fan. Computer parts get wimpier and more delicate every year. Do yourself a favor. Shut down now and clean your heat sink. 'Nuff said about that. Banjo (_)=='=~

I just did the lspci and here is the output: 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Unknown device 2e30 (rev 03) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Unknown device 2e31 (rev 03) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 01) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01) 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01) 00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01) 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01) 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01) 00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 01) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 01) 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Unknown device 0622 (rev a1) I do not see in there any mention of an ethernet controller, which goes along with the contention from the OS that it does not exist. I suspect that the chip is fried. ??? That does not suprise me given the horrible time we had mounting this MOBO into the crate. The heat sink holes are too small (I measured them with calipers - 3.96 mm instead of 4) and we ended up breaking one of the plastic pins on the heat sink pushing it into the board. Just as a side issue, I would not recommend the Foxconn motherboard. POS. Banjo (_)=='=~

I can't find anyplace around here to buy a cheap NIC off the shelf. It is all wireless stuff, and I want this computer to hook into my router with a wire (to trouble shoot the wireless stuff LOL). I will try to get to the lspci tomorrow. I was wicked busy today... two flat tires on my wife's car (two flats at the same time!), shopping and all kinds of stuff. I am hoping for some quiet time tomorrow to look into this. Banjo (_)=='=~

A quick update. I checked the CMOS and saw that the onboard LAN is definitely enabled. As the computer booted, I watched the verbose messages go by and saw a red [FAILED] for accessing the eth0 device saying that it doesn't exist. It went by too fast for me to get the exact wording, and I cannot find the error in any of the logs in /var/log. Does that mean that the hardware has failed? If I have to RMA this MOBO then I am stuck with the same problem that I was trying to solve by getting the new board - the computer will be down for weeks. I visited some of the suggested forums where they got their internet working by booting and rebooting with the RJ45 connected or not. I don't think that has anything to do with this problem because those people at least had intermittent connectivity. My system just says that the device doesn't exist. I tried it all anyway with no effect. I cannot see myself learning how to compile a kernel just to see if a driver might fix this. Since when is the OS a slave to a driver? I thought that drivers were invented so you could swap out hardware without having to change the OS. When did that change? Sorry if it sounds like just a complaint, but I don't know what to do next. The sound has stopped working as well, but I assume that is because the onboard sound system is different and needs new drivers. I think I will either go back to Newegg and order a PCI NIC or maybe just go to the Apple store and order a Mac. This sucks. Any ideas that don't involve just giving up would be appreciated. Banjo (_)=='=~

I am not at my Linux computer, so I can't try any of these ideas right now. Thanks for the info. I will look into it when I get home. So far, the only device that is plugged into the PCIe is an NVidia graphics card, the model of which I do not have at hand. I did not set up the CMOS myself (my son did that) so I do not know if there was an option to disable the NIC or not. I do not remember whether or not I installed the kernel source, and it is too late now because I have no internet to install the source so that I can compile the driver so that I can get to the internet so that I can install the kernel source etc. :o Compiling a kernel is a whole learning curve that I have not been through yet, so that could take a while, especially if I did not install the source code. If I have to, I will just plug in another NIC or USB wireless dongle and connect that way. Spending another month to figure out how to get the onboard NIC to work might not be worth the trouble. Thanks, Banjo (_)=='=~

It is a brand new MOBO, so I am not sure why clearing the BIOS would have any beneficial effect. What exactly will that do for me? Thanks, Banjo (_)=='=~

Thanks for the link. I'm not sure how to install a driver, and it is too late to learn how tonight. Any tips on how to do this would be a great help. Thanks, Banjo (_)=='=~

I am stumped. I have a Mandy 2008.1 which was running fine on a MSI Mother board, Intel dual core etc. On Monday, the mother board fried itself so we were dead. It literally put out a puff of smoke and died. That board is not available any more, so we got a Foxconn G41M series MOBO and swapped it for the MSI. Now the computer boots OK. However, when I try to connect to the net, the system cannot connect. We have a working RJ45 plugged into the socket from our working switch to our DSL modem, and there are two lights lit up on the back of the MOBO, which means it is seeing a carrier on the wire. But the system sees no eth0 device. It is as if the LAN hardware does not exist. When I do an ifconfig I get only the lo device. I did an "ifup eth0" and got the message "Device eth0 does not seem to be present." I opend the Mandrake Control Center and took the following path: Network and Internet Set up a new network Ethernet No device can be found for this connection I opened the Hardware Manager and found that all looks well except for two unknown devices in Bridges and System Controllers 2e31 and 2e30, and nothing about eth0. The Foxconn document has two entries for the LAN hardware, Lan chip Realtek 10/100 G41M-V Lan chip Realtek 10/100/100Mbps (G41M-S/G41M) I suspect that the hardware is not being recognized because we slipped it under the existing system and there is a driver issue. But I can find no help anywhere about where to begin to correct that. I am so lost in this I don't know what to do. I was really really happy with my system the way it was, and I do not want to start over again. It took me a month to get it set up and working. Can anybody tell me how to get this LAN hardware recognized, a driver loaded, or whatever is needed. Thanks so much Banjo (Still a novice after all these years)

OK. I checked my security level and it is set to High. I do not understand what all of the stuff on the tabs means in the MCC, so I have not changed it tonight. It is too late to be fooling around with it tonight anyway. How does one find out the value of "Default"? The descriptions of the various levels are rather vague. Where can I find the specifics of what each means? Is there a man page or an info file? Many thanks to all for the info Maybe I will try changing it tomorrow when I am rested. Banjo (_)=='=~ P.S. Never mind. I just clicked on the Help button and it downloaded and installed the info. LOL. I really need to get to bed.

I don't know what the security level is, although I would suspect that it is standard since I do not remember doing anything special when I installed it. I installed from the Mandriva One CD and then added the apps from the repository. I don't know how to check what the level is. I had to set the security on the router pretty low (Known Threats, I think) or my Kmail would not work with my ISP. As far as I know, I did not install any indexing tools. While it was hammering the disk I looked at the processes and saw nothing that appeared to be taking any significant resources like RAM or CPU. I am not at my Linux computer right now, but I will take a look when I get home to see if any of those are on there. This is not something that has been happening all along, and the next day it did not appear to be doing it. Very strange. Thanks for the ideas. Banjo (_)=='=~

I did not know where to put this question, so please forgive me if this is the wrong place. Yesterday I booted my computer (Mandy 2008.1) and logged in. The computer was wicked slow and sluggish. Watching gkrellm, it was apparent that there was no network traffic, the CPU's were down at ~5%, and the disk indicator showed idle, but the computer took forever to do anything. It took half a minute to post the Start menu or run a command window. The access light on the front of the case showed the hard disk being hammered by something, but I could not figure out what it was. The disk activity was not indicated in the gkrellm display...???.. The KSysGuard process monitor showed the processes as mostly idle; nothing showed up as hogging any CPU time. There was zero swap in use, and about 700Meg of my 2 Gig in use..... basically lots of resources were available. After a few minutes it went away and was fine. I am baffled. It was almost like running my fnWindows box at work, which spends the first 20 minutes after it boots scanning the whole disk for bad guys. Today the computer booted OK no problems. It is as fast and crisp as usual. I am running the ext3 file system and thought that maybe it was doing a disk check or something, but it usually does that during the bootup, not after I am using it. Anybody out there have any idea what might have caused such a thing? Thanks Banjo (_)=='=~

I only backup my stuff, not the system stuff. It makes for quicker backups and recoveries. I also don't back up everything of mine I have on the disk because some of it is just for temporary use. So I wrote a bash script myself. It reads a list of files and directories from a config file called ".backupfiles" and writes them out to a disk. The script writes out the files only if they are new or changed since the previous backup, so I can do a complete backup of ~20 Gig in about 10 - 20 minutes.... most of that spent tarring the mail folders. If I don't have to tar the mail folders I can do a complete backup in 5 to 10 minutes. The medium I use is the little Western Digital Passport drive. I have two of them. They are smaller than a pack of cards and are powered by the USB port. So far I have had good luck with them... knock wood. Oh, and this is a home system running 2008.1, so I can do anything I want with it. B) Banjo (_)=='=~

Yes! :D I am running Mandriva 2008.1. I opened the package manager and found the package for php cli and installed it. I can now run my simple hit counter from the command line. I tried installing a php cli at work earlier today on my fnWindows platform and when I tried to run php.exe the system just told me that it could not run that application. ??? But here on my Linux it works fine. I looked at netbeans, but it appears that the debugger requires a local or remote server to run the php. I will have to look into that in more detail later. For now, I have enough to work with. Thanks to all for the usual quick solution. Banjo (_)=='=~

Greetings. I just started using PHP on my web site and I am writing simple scripts for hit counters etc. (Yeah, I know... Welcome to the 20th Century). Unfortunately running them requires uploading my code to the server and then trying to figure out what went wrong remotely with very little error output. The system I am developing on is not a server, so it won't run my PHP directly. It seems crazy to me that I cannot find a way to run a simple PHP script without turning my system into a server. I have Googled the net, and I have searched Mandriva, and most of the suggestions involve "Install Apache" or run XAMPP, which basically installs Apache. Is that really necessary? I don't want to invest the time and energy to build/understand/configure/trouble-shoot/maintain/secure an Apache server on my computer just to see if my PHP script will search a directory or increment a hit counter. It seems like maximum overkill. Surely there is a way to run a PHP script from a CLI or simple GUI without all of the infrastructure of a server. Please? Sorry if this has been asked a gazillion times, but my searches have got me nowhere. This board is the best, and Linux rocks! Banjo (_)=='=~ [moved from Software by spinynorman]

Thanks for the quick response. I would never have guessed that. I will give it a try when I get home. Banjo (_)=='=~

I have a script, rawread, which uses isoinfo to get information from a CD iso. I got the script from the page http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/coasterless.htm. I have upgraded my system from Mandy 2006 to 2008.1 and now there is no isoinfo in the system so the rawread script will not work. I found cdrtools at http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/cdrecord.html which claims to include isoinfo. However, I downloaded cdrtools onto my cygwin here at work and built it, but alas there is no isoinfo. I did get cdrecord out of it. I downloaded isoinfo source from http://www.icewalkers.com/Linux/Software/51630/isoinfo.html and built that, but it seems to be an antiquated version (0.03.03), and it has no -d switch in it, and that switch is used by the rawread script. I just want to grab an iso off of a CD and my script no longer works. What am I missing? Are these tools just too old to use any more? Is there a better way? I am so confused. Thanks Banjo (_)=='=~

They didn't even have KDE 3 back in the year 1009, so this may be more tricky than you think! Ah, yes. Those were the good old days. We did our computing with little beads on wires. That was good stuff. It rarely crashed except during earthquakes and raids by the Mongol hoards. I downloaded Mandy 2009 One CD and booted it on my other computer and it behaved rather badly. The widgets crashed the X server several times, and when I tried to go to a web site it started reading the CD endlessly (like a half hour) until I shut it down. I imagine that was an artifact of the age of the computer and the CD boot. I would consider upgrading over the net to keep my KDE3, but my internet connection is so flakey these days that it would doubtless crap out on me in the middle and leave me with a boat anchor. Is there a way to turn off the annoying upgrade notices and then start them up again later? Isn't it just a daemon? Banjo (_)=='=~ P.S. My eeepc is still running the original Xandros and doing just fine, so I am leaving it alone.

Thanks for the info. The issue is that I have a house full of people who are not computer savvy and who use the computer to email and shop and surf etc. They all love Linux after I have set it up. No viruses or adware or bluescreens..... just using it. There is a large value in presenting a recognized and comfortable environment. Nobody is interested in blowing the socks off the bleeding edge of technology. So I will stick with the known quantity for now, which is KDE 3. Thanks for the help. I will sleep better knowing that survival is possible even if somebody accidentally clicks on the message "Pimp My OS". Linux rocks. Banjo (_)=='=~