Linux Sound - just a little further forward

Please bear with me, having spent days on connecting directly to my ISP and installing my modem driver, I've become more than a little confused and lost!

The problem I have is this...

I have ac97 onboard sound, and a cmedia PCI sound card. I have tried to use both in turn, but neither seem to work, although there is built in support for both.

Currently, as my machine boots, it loads my Cmedia card with ALSA. that said, I have no sound when playing games, or playing cd's, or system sounds. Nothing at all!

When in Gnome, if I go to Main Menu --> Configuration --> GNOME --> Advanced --> GStreamer Settings, I get no sound from testing any of the Default Sink options on the sound menu, (currently set as OSS), and it fails to open a test pipeline for most of them. On the Default source, when selecting OSS, or OSS monitors, I get what I would only describe as a system sound as I press the 'test' button, but I get nothing at all from anywhere else in the system. It has been this way since I installed Mandrake. I just cant seem to get it working!


Edit:

OK, this is interesting. With the GStreamer settings as above, while testing pipeline for oss on the default source, I have sound (well, system sounds, and audio cd's anyway. I still have no sound from games at all). When I stop testing, I don't!

seems I've just proved something. I don't know what though. Could somebody please show me the next logical step?

Both ALSA and aumix report full volume.

As requested from this (http://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10358) thread, here is my lsmod readout (in full, because I don't know what half of it means.) This was done with the GStreamer default src OSS pipeline test running (whatever the heck that is!) I've made an ammendment after running lsmod with the test off. Namely to the soundcard in use, the "snd_cmipci")

Module Size Used by Not tainted
ppp_synctty 7520 1 (autoclean)
ppp_generic 24292 3 (autoclean) [ppp_synctty]
slhc 6564 0 (autoclean) [ppp_generic]
n_hdlc 7616 1
isofs 28148 0 (autoclean)
udf 88736 0 (autoclean)
binfmt_misc 7116 1
parport_pc 25544 1 (autoclean)
lp 8160 0 (autoclean)
parport 34472 1 (autoclean) [parport_pc lp]
snd-seq-midi 5056 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-opl3-synth 12680 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-seq-instr 7204 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-seq-midi-emul 6924 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-ainstr-fm 2928 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-seq-oss 32000 0 (unused)
snd-seq-midi-event 6080 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq 42544 2 [snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth snd-seq-instr snd-seq-midi-emul snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-via82xx 15360 0
snd-ac97-codec 45720 0 [snd-via82xx]
snd-pcm-oss 43652 1
snd-mixer-oss 14200 1 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-cmipci 23800 2 < becomes "1" when pipeline test isn't running >
snd-pcm 79588 0 [snd-via82xx snd-pcm-oss snd-cmipci]
snd-page-alloc 9044 0 [snd-via82xx snd-pcm]
snd-mpu401-uart 4704 0 [snd-via82xx snd-cmipci]
snd-rawmidi 17760 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-opl3-lib 8004 0 [snd-opl3-synth snd-cmipci]
snd-timer 18436 0 [snd-seq snd-pcm snd-opl3-lib]
snd-seq-device 5832 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth snd-seq-oss snd-seq snd-rawmidi snd-opl3-lib]
snd-hwdep 6304 0 [snd-opl3-lib]
snd 41380 4 [snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth snd-seq-instr snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-via82xx snd-ac97-codec snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-cmipci snd-pcm snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-opl3-lib snd-timer snd-seq-device snd-hwdep]
nfsd 75280 0 (autoclean)
af_packet 14856 1 (autoclean)
ip_vs 70188 0 (autoclean)
sr_mod 19384 0 (autoclean)
floppy 55932 0
via-rhine 15856 1 (autoclean)
mii 3864 0 (autoclean) [via-rhine]
nls_utf8 1312 2 (autoclean)
ntfs 77292 2 (autoclean)
supermount 84032 3 (autoclean)
ide-cd 33956 0
cdrom 32608 0 [sr_mod ide-cd]
tun 5440 0 (unused)
tuner 11688 1 (autoclean)
bttv 99648 0
videodev 7936 3 [bttv]
i2c-algo-bit 8552 0 [bttv]
soundcore 6340 0 [snd bttv]
i2c-core 20484 0 [tuner bttv i2c-algo-bit]
ide-scsi 11376 0
scsi_mod 106176 2 [sr_mod ide-scsi]
printer 8576 0
usb-uhci 25136 0 (unused)
usbcore 74988 1 [printer usb-uhci]
rtc 9004 0 (autoclean)
ext3 60048 2
jbd 39264 2 [ext3]

Edited to include the last 10 lines I missed in the first paste.

after a little bit of searching on google/linux, I found this thread...

http://www.mail-archive.com/expert@linux-mandrake.com/msg80557.html

...which seems to suggest a kernel problem (one of the posts contains a link to a log of kernel fixes). Something to do with APIC / APCI or something.

Could anybody please confirm this. If so, how to I upgrade the kernel to 2.6.x??? (apparently that's when the problem was fixed!?!?)

You can download the kernel source from http://www.kernel.org/ and compile it yourself (if you have gcc installed). The process should be quite simple, but at least Didou had problems with RH9 :blackeye:

Anyhow, unpack the source to somewhere. Login as root, then do

make xconfig (to get a nice graphical menu)

or make menuconfig (for classic textmode)

when you've gone through all those options you don't have a clue, the next step is to

make install

This should install the kernel to /boot but I'm not 100% sure, I can check this later (I don't have Mandrake 9.2 installed now).

Then you need to tell the bootloader to use the new kernel from now on..

oooh! Sounds like fun.! lol

I can't believe I'm going to have to do this!!! What I wouldn't give for years of linux experience all of my own. I can see this going pearshaped!

Before I even attempt installing this test version kernel (not much choice really. As far as I can make out, there isn't a full release of 2.6.0 availiable, their on test 9 from what I've read), how do I configure the bootloader to use it? I'm using lilo.


Edit: Just visited the link. 6.2. I guess I should've googled that little bit harder!

YaY!!!

ok, please don't ask me how, because I have very little idea at all, but for now, I have the sound working with the ac97 onboard. Whether it works next boot or not is a different question. Something to do with either alsa loading on boot, the src and sink selection, a little trick on the site above (mute unmute) or forcing APCI on boot. Hopefully, I can leave the kernel upgrade to a later time.

Being that I've got this sorted, for the moment, while I'm here, I'll ask what I suspect is an easy question. How do I change the refresh rate for the monitor??? I haven't mentioned it untill now, but I have real problems with full screen graphics. even normal running is slow. I'm on a 1128*768 resolution at 16k colours.