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mouse/keyboard issues fixed, but still no sound


volfro
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Okay.

 

I disabled the KDE sound server and it's made a little difference. Not much though. Now, when I press play in XMMS, I get skipping sounds just as with everything else, instead of it crashing. KDE noise behaves as it did before--severe skipping, so bad that I have to mute it--and certain, very short game sounds (i.e. the ball-knocking in Kolf) skip along somewhat intelligibly.

 

I also urpmi'd kernels. The latest I could find in the cooker was 2.6.8.1.12mdk-1-1mdk. No difference. It skips a little slower.

 

If you remember from my previous posts, sound works nicely in Knoppix--though the quality is kinda bad. My edition of Knoppix uses the 2.4 kernel, so I figured I'd urpmi one of those--and still, no difference. The system's somewhat slower and less stable, but no difference othewise.

 

Where to go from here? Should I move on to another distro? (I'm already contemplating new hardware, but as a college kid, I'm poor.)

 

Thanks once again for all the help

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trust me, I'm having the same problems with a vanilla kernel, and I'm currently working on a solution.

 

One thing I found out was that sound only works perfectly with these: a 2.4.27 kernel with OSS support, and a 2.6.8.1-mm4 kernel. It's actually rather strange, since the mm4-kernel uses modules with the same names. I'll try to track this down further...

 

Meanwhile, I recommend you try installing a 2.4.27 kernel from the Mandrake RPM repositories and try that. Or if you want to stay with 2.6 then you can apply the 2.6.8.1-mm4 patch (mm-patches are experimental patches released by kernel developer Andrew Morton) but being new to linux it would be more difficult.

 

Try to make sure with the 2.4.27 kernel that the module via82cxxx_audio is being used not snd_via82xx. BTW, I used the vanilla 2.4.27 kernel, I have no idea how mandrake's patches would affect this...

 

I'd better write this down somewhere... :puter:

Edited by arthur
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I'll try urpmi-ing 2.4.27 as soon as I can.

 

However, since it's come up, I want to ask you something I've wondered about for awhile and haven't found the answer to in all my kernel readings...

 

Will the Mandrake distribution still work correctly if I compile and install a non-mandrake kernel? I suppose this is a stupid question, considering that's one of the POINTS of linux--the whole whatever-kerenl-you-please idea--but I'm still curious if installing other kernels affects performance (besides improving it because it's a smaller kernel). And reliability? Is that affected beyond the reliability of the kernel itself?

 

But anyway. I've tried to compile my own kernel twice now, and it's not worked either time, but I'm NOT going to give up. Where can I get those mm patches you spoke of? And do you apply the patches to the source directly just like you apply other patches to the source from kernel.org? I ask because I'm all about learning. I know it's the future, Linux is, and I don't mind diving in head-first with a few good walkthroughs. I haven't stored anything important on my Linux partition, so it'll be formatted and screwed up as many times as it takes, and I'm ready to get my hands dirty with the inner workings and tinkering.

 

I tried installing Fedora Core 2--which Mandrake could take a lesson or two from, when it comes to interface design and ease of package installation--and updating it, but no cigar, unfortunately.

 

Thanks for helping me out, arthur. You've been very supportive. :)

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You're welcome. :) It's also because i have the same soundcard. :cheesy:

link 1

 

link 2

 

The comments on those posts also contain useful info. You can also look in the FAQ section on this board. Anyway, I tried the 2.6.9 vanilla kernel and the 2.6.9-mm1 patched kernel, and it's a no go. Sound skips terribly. :furious3: I'm staying with 2.6.8.1-mm4 for now. I'm trying different patchsets like 2.6.9-nitro1 (but they're not recommended for the casual user)

 

You can find the kernel and the mm kernel patches in www.kernel.org

 

NB> The kernels 2.4.27 and 2.6.8.1-mm4 have good sound under ALSA. But if you uncheck ALSA support in the config and check OSS support, maybe you can use a vanilla kernel. Don't use the mm-patch for now, it's highly experimental.

 

make sure to run LILO after you install your kernels (it's something I keep forgetting)

 

ps. yes, you can install a non-mandrake kernel in mandrake. It's essentially the same, maybe even faster.

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just an update. sound works great with 2.6.9-nitro1. This kernel is blazing fast too, for you performance obsessed people out there.

 

volfro, you can try to compile ANY kernel (whatever kernel sources you already have) but be sure of these following options:

 

ALSA support: N

OSS Support(deprecated): Yes

-then pick the VIA sound module under PCI in the OSS list of soundcards.

 

Once you've mastered kernel compiling you can go back to ALSA using the -mm or -nitro patchsets. Or hopefully the vanilla kernel developers would have fixed it by then. Hope this helps

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Exciting! I don't know when I'll get a chance to try it, but try it I will.

 

That's one of the big things that's been keeping me from using Linux every day; I listen to music almost whenever I'm on the computer. Besides, the sound skipping thing is very very annoying.

 

But next, I plan on tackling webcam support... :lol:

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Oh, very quick question--

 

Do you get the vanilla kernel and then patch it directly using the nitro patch, or is there a pre-patched version of 2.6.9 out there? I'm gonna try my hand at that one...

 

I ask because at the nitro patch's website, there're 2.6.9 RC patches, all the way up to four, but at kernel.org, there's only one 2.6.9, which, I presume, is the final release.

 

I went ahead and downloaded both the kernel and the patch, so should I just unzip and patch 'em or is there someplace else I should go?

 

Thanks once again for all the help!

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er, as i said, i don't recommend the nitro patch, it's very experimental and possibly very unstable (i haven't had problems, but I could just be lucky)...but if you want to continue then here it is:

 

you should get matching vanilla kernels and patches. 2.6.9 from kernel.org should match with 2.6.9-nitro1 patch, NOT 2.6.9-rc4-nitrosomething. You can also find 2.6.9-rc4 in kernel.org under pre-releases, and matching nitro patches.

 

untar the kernel source in /usr/src and cd to it, then apply the patch using 2 possible commands, depending on the file type of the patch:

patch -p1 < /path/to/patchfile

or

bzip2 -dc /path/to/patchfile.tar.bz2 | patch -p1

 

But I'd really recommend you try to make a working vanilla kernel first. Pre-patched versions don't exist, unless you use gentoo.

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Thanks.

 

I understand that it's experimental, but I'm not worried about screwing up the system. I'm here to learn, and sometimes that's what it takes, right? My youngest brother often asks my oldest brother how to learn what he's learned about computers. His answer is always: crash it. Then fix it.

 

But I am trying the vanilla kernel first. I'll let you know how it turns out. :)

Edited by volfro
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I'm happy to report my FIRST SUCCESSFUL kernel build! Woohoo! I went with the vanilla 2.6.9 kernel, unpatched.

 

Unfortunately, though, even with OSS sound support enabled and no ALSA, I'm afraid I still get no sound out of fedora core. I want to reinstall MDK 10.1 and do the kernel thing again and see what happens; MDK was better with the sound than FC has been--I got skips in there, as opposed to the no sound whatsoever I get in FC.

 

Chances are, the vanilla won't work any better in MDK, but we'll see...

 

Thanks again for all your help, arthur!

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Sound's fixed!!

 

I reinstalled mandrake after I screwed up the x server trying to get DRI support, but no luck, no sound--and I couldn't get a new kernel to compile. Kept getting ridiculous errors that didn't make sense about packages that I knew were installed but I went back and updated anyway and still no go.

 

SO I reinstalled Fedora Core, only this time, I unplugged my WEBCAM, which also acts as a microphone!! The kernel was getting confused about drivers, I suppose.

 

However, I get NO duplexing--it automatically uses the ALSA sound drivers, which sound pretty crappy. When I /sbin/modprobe -r snd_via82xx, I get told the module can't be removed because it's in use, even though I mute it via the gnome GUI. Any ideas?

 

Thanks again for all the help!

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you have to say 'N' to the ALSA via module in the kernel config, and say 'Y' or 'M' to the OSS via module. I've also tried unloading that snd_via82xx but it can't be unloaded as far as i've tried.

 

Sorry I don't know a thing about FC, i've heard rumours that it's crappy with multimedia. My experience only extends to Mandrake and Gentoo. It should be the same though :unsure:

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Ah, if you're doing a fresh install of Mandrake you don't need to compile the kernel at all. When you come to the comfiguration setup screen (network, graphics card, timezone, sound) just click the 'setup sound' thing and you can choose between the 2 modules snd_via82xx and via82cxxx_audio. Of course you should choose via82cxxx_audio.

 

Easy, sound will work like a charm :)

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Yeah, I'm gonna reinstall Mandrake and give it another go. I've been impressed by FC; it's a very tight package, and it looks good, but I feel like I know Mandrake a little better--EVEN IF I have trouble getting almost anything to compile. We'll see how the duplexing issue goes.

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