[lug] How do you make sound work?

[Glenn Murray]

Thanks for the replies.  I couldn't find anything about OSS
independent of ALSA in dselect.  As for ALSA,

glenn/$ sudo /etc/init.d/alsa start
Starting ALSA sound driver (version none): no driver installed.

The alsa-modules are not in the stable distro.  The alsa-sources won't
configure:

checking for kernel version... expr: syntax error
expr: syntax error
expr: syntax error
failed (probably missing /usr/src/linux/include/linux/version.h)

I gather this is because I haven't configured my kernel sources---but
these (2.2.17) are no longer in the stable distro, either.

At this point ALSA is looking like a waste of time.  Linux is the
strong, silent type anyway, right?

Thanks, anyway!
Glenn Murray
http://www.mines.edu/~gmurray

On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 rm at fabula.de wrote:
> On Debian you first need to decide what OS level sound system
> you want/need to use, OSS(either free or commercial) or ALSA.
> Iff you want to use ALSA (my current pick) you only need to enable
> basic sound support in the kernel but no compiled in sound card driver.
> On a stock Debian system (i.e.  no custom kernel) it should be enough
> to install the alsa modules package (alsa-modules-n.n.n-mmm, where n.n.n
> is the version of your kernel package and mmm is the processor type
> of your current kernel package). Otherwise get alsa-sources, install it,
> read the documentation in /usr/share/doc/alsa-source and compile the modules.
> On Debian ALSA is configured with files in /etc/alsa/ - have a look at the
> sample file that come with the package.
> 
> On trap with ALSA: when you insmod the modules the sound is muted by default!
> Get some ALSA capable mixer app. (xaumix or the like) and unmute it.
> This can also be done in the startup script with alsamixer (package alsa-utils).
> Feel frere to contact me if you need more help/infos.
> 
> 
>  Ralf Mattes