On Friday 29 June 2007 13:39, Chris Lale wrote: > Thanks for the suggestions, Nigel. > > Nigel Henry wrote: > > On Thursday 28 June 2007 12:08, Chris Lale wrote: > >> Some of my Etch sound apps have stopped working: Audacity, RealPlayer > >> 10, XMMS. Others continue to work OK: gxine, mplayer, VLC Media Player. > > > > Hi Chris. Is this [...] an existing install, and some have just stopped > > working? [...] > > Yes. The apps have stopped working on my desktop machine. > > [...] > > > Seems like something has grabbed the soundcard, and won't let go. You > > could try disabling ESD, Gnomes sound daemon, if you're using Gnome, or > > aRTs sound server if you're using KDE. They are often responsible for > > this sort of problem. > > Both esd and arts are disabled and there are no processes for either. > > >> I can fix XMMS by changing the output plugin from OSS to ALSA > >> (right-click -> Options -> Preferences -> Output Plugin. This should not > >> be necessary - my Etch laptop works perfectly through ALSA with the > >> Output Plugin set to OSS. > >> > >> I can fix RealPlayer and Audacity by installing alsa-oss and running > >> them from a terminal using "aoss realplay" and "aoss audacity". I am > >> sure that this should not be necessary either. > > > > I always install alsa-oss as a matter of course, and didn't think that > > RealPlayer would work without it, as it's an OSS app. Same goes for > > Audacity IIRC. > > The above fixes work for the affected desktop machine. On my laptop > alsa-oss is not installed. Nevertheless, Audacity loads and plays files. I > have installed realplayer and > it worked first time.
It looks like I was wrong then about Realplayer, and Audacity needing alsa-oss to be installed for them to work. > > > Does running ps auxw show anything using the sound. Some daemon or other? > > No oss or arts daemons. Nothing else related to sound that I can see. > > > Over to you. > > Both machines have Etch up to date. > > The laptop has /dev/dsp, the affected desktop does not. Perhaps this device > is needed by alsa for the affected applications? I tried to create the > device with > > # cd /dev; ./MAKEDEV -v sound > > but the command created the devices in /dev/.static/dev/ because udev is > active. Both machines have udev. Is there another way to create /dev/dsp? Well I found something on Google here about missing /dev/dsp, which I have to say I've never experienced. http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=544920 There's a load of other hits on Google for /dev/dsp missing , which may be worth having a look at. The suggestion at least on this page is to, as root, modprobe snd-pcm-oss. I'd run lsmod first and see if snd-pcm-oss, and snd-mixer-oss are loaded. You should the device nodes have been created after modprobing it. Why you've lost them though, is a bit of a mystery. I'd thought perhaps some kernel related thing, if your using a later kernel on your PC than on the laptop, or have rolled your own for the PC, and have missed something out when running makemenuconfig. I've only got 3 kernels on my Etch. 2.4.27, 2.6.8 (both leftover from sarge), and a 2.6.17 which uses udev. Let us know how you get on, and if there are still problems. The modules should be being loaded automatically when you boot up, and obviously were until recently, but if that modprobe works, you can always add them to /etc/modules, and they will be loaded when you boot. If they are already loaded, they'll just be skipped. Nigel. > -- > Chris. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
