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Need to apply alsaconf after every boot to hear sound

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Hi,

After every boot I need to apply "alsaconf" to define my soundcard to be used by ALSA, so that I can hear sound. I.e.: I cannot hear any sound after a (re-) boot.

After a boot, the file /proc/asound/cards does not contain an entry regarding my SB Live! sound card (no entry regarding EMU10K1):

samba:~# more /proc/asound/cards
0 [SI7012 ]: ICH - SiS SI7012
SiS SI7012 with ALC100,100P at 0xd800, irq 11
1 [UART ]: MPU-401 UART - MPU-401 UART
MPU-401 UART at 0x300, irq 10
2 [Bt878 ]: Bt87x - Brooktree Bt878
Brooktree Bt878 at 0xcddff000, irq 11
samba:~#

I do not want to use the sound devices in that list. I would like to use my SB Live! sound card, which is not listed in that file ;)

So then, after every (re-) boot I need to apply "alsaconf", specifying the sound device EMU10K1 to be configured.

Having applied "alsaconf", the file /proc/asound/cards then contains only one item:

samba:~# more /proc/asound/cards
0 [Live ]: EMU10K1 - SB Live 5.1
SB Live 5.1 (rev.7, serial:0x80641102) at 0xcc00, irq 11
samba:~#

Which equals to my SB Live! sound card.

After that I can hear sound ...

What do I need to do to ensure that there is always an entry "EMU10K1 - SB Live 5.1" in my /proc/asound/cards after every (re-) boot?

Thanks a lot! ;)

nfidia

PS: I have Debian 4.0 (Etch) installed, with kernel 2.6.18-5-486

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Need to apply alsaconf after

Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2007-09-22 17:31.

Maybe

# alsactl store

will do the trick after you have run alsaconf.

»

Need to apply alsaconf after

Submitted by nfidia on Mon, 2007-09-24 12:53.

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your reply. Well, I tried "alsactl store" after alsaconf and "alsactl restore" already, but with no luck.

I applied "alsactl store" after "alsaconf" again, and there was an EMU10K1 entry in /proc/asound/cards. Then I applied a re-boot, and this is the result:

samba:~# more /proc/asound/cards
0 [SI7012 ]: ICH - SiS SI7012
SiS SI7012 with ALC100,100P at 0xd800, irq 11
1 [Bt878 ]: Bt87x - Brooktree Bt878
Brooktree Bt878 at 0xcddff000, irq 11
2 [UART ]: MPU-401 UART - MPU-401 UART
MPU-401 UART at 0x300, irq 10

samba:~# alsactl restore

samba:~# more /proc/asound/cards
0 [SI7012 ]: ICH - SiS SI7012
SiS SI7012 with ALC100,100P at 0xd800, irq 11
1 [Bt878 ]: Bt87x - Brooktree Bt878
Brooktree Bt878 at 0xcddff000, irq 11
2 [UART ]: MPU-401 UART - MPU-401 UART
MPU-401 UART at 0x300, irq 10
samba:~#

So there is no EMU10k1 entry in proc/asound/cards

»

check /etc/modprobe.d/sound

Submitted by Matt on Mon, 2007-09-24 17:32.

After some digging, it appears that /etc/modprobe.d/sound controls which sound will become card 0.

For example, you could try putting in that file:

alias snd-card-0 snd-emu10k1
options snd-emu10k1 index=0

Also, you might want to check the contents of that file before and after running alsaconf. I don't know if alsaconf is writing to that file, or worse, if something else is overwriting its contents.

»

check /etc/modprobe.d/sound

Submitted by nfidia on Wed, 2007-09-26 01:04.

Hi Matt,

Thanks a lot for your reply.

Before I created this thread, I did some research on the Internet, and I found other threads relating to the content of /etc/modprobe.d/sound, but I cannot notice any difference between how its content should look like and the content of my file /etc/modprobe.d/sound.

After a boot,

a) /etc/modprobe.d/sound contains exactly the same information which you mentioned
b) /proc/asound/cards does not contain an entry related to emu10k1. Sound does not work.

Having applied alsaconf, the content of /etc/modprobe.d/sound is the same as before. And sound works

When I apply alsaconf, I am asked whether I want to modify
/etc/modprobe.d/sound, and /etc/modprobe.conf, if present.

But there is no file modprobe.conf in my system:

samba:/etc# find ./* -type f -name modprobe.conf
samba:/etc#

My guess is that the reason is not related to (loading of) any emu10k1 modules.

When I search for files in /etc changed since I applied alasconf for the last time, I can only find these two files:

samba:/etc# ls -aclt * | grep "2007-09-26"
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 63283 2007-09-26 07:36 ld.so.cache
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 491 2007-09-26 07:35 mtab

=> ld.so.cache => I could try an ldconfig directly after a boot, maybe this solves the problem?!

»

check /etc/modprobe.d/sound

Submitted by nfidia on Wed, 2007-09-26 01:15.

> => ld.so.cache => I could try an ldconfig directly after
> a boot, maybe this solves the problem?!

Of course not ;) - it did not work. By the way, ldconfig would never change a file like /proc/asound/cards, at least according to me ...

»

/etc/modules.conf

Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2007-09-26 15:22.

The file you are looking for is /etc/modules.conf . But you are not supposed to edit that file directly. Perhaps running update-modules is needed.

If the proc info is always wrong maybe there is some package like hotplug or discover that is messing things up?

»

check /etc/modprobe.d/sound

Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2007-09-28 07:51.

Another thing to try is to add snd-emu10k1 to /etc/modules-- hopefully the module would be loaded first before udev or hotplug or discover messes things up.

If that still doesn't work, you could look into "blacklisting" the offending modules by listing them in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist .

»

check /etc/modprobe.d/sound

Submitted by nfidia on Sun, 2007-09-30 14:04.

Hi Matt,

Thanks to your help I could solve the problem ;)

"If that still doesn't work, you could look into "blacklisting" the offending modules by listing them in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist"

=> this helped.

I asked myself which modules should be blacklisted. First I only blacklisted "bttv" which is a driver for my Hauppauge tv card, which I do not need anymore. Re-boot => did not help. Then I found out that my Hauppauge card uses another module, "bt878". I could not find out the names of all the other modules which should be blacklisted.

So I ran alsaconf again, because it first unloads all modules which alsa uses:

samba:~# alsaconf
Unloading ALSA sound driver modules: snd-intel8x0 snd-emu10k1-synth snd-emux-synth snd-seq-virmidi snd-seq-midi-emul snd-emu10k1 snd-seq-dummy snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-rawmidi snd-ac97-codec snd-ac97-bus snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm snd-seq-device snd-timer snd-page-alloc snd-util-mem snd-hwdep.

...

Then one has to say which soundcard should be configured, here: my emu10k1 card.

Then alsaconf loads all modules necessary for the configured card.

I assumed that there must be a difference between which modules alsaconf first unloads, and then loads.

So then I ran

# rmmod (all module names which alsaconf had unloaded)

And the result was a list of modules that were not loaded AFTER alsaconf had finished the configuration of my emu10k1 card.

I put the names of these not-loaded modules into /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.

So in total I have now these extra lines in etc/modprobe.d/blacklist:

# Try to get emu10k1 listed in /proc/asound/cards:
blacklist bt878
blacklist bttv
blacklist snd_bt87x
blacklist snd_emu10k1x
blacklist snd_mpu401
blacklist snd_mpu401_uart
blacklist snd_intel8x0

And now I can hear sound, even after a re-boot ;)

Thanks, Matt!

(But anyway, isn't that a bug, I mean that one needs to blacklist certain modules in order to hear sound?)

»

check /etc/modprobe.d/sound

Submitted by Matt on Mon, 2007-10-01 12:08.

Sure seems like a bug. I wonder why I haven't had the same problem, as I also have a Hauppauge card. Maybe it's because I load the ivtv module early on, which prevents bt878 from getting loaded.

»

Re: check /etc/modprobe.d/sound

Submitted by anchorman on Sun, 2008-05-04 17:56.

Just wanted to say that blacklisting worked for me. I just copied all of nfidia's list into etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, rebooted, and my emu10k1 card is now working. Thanks to Matt and nfidia!

»

Re: check /etc/modprobe.d/sound

Submitted by tranceponderer on Tue, 2008-06-17 22:59.

Thank you very very much

I now owe my hair to you guys

~:)

»
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