Hi all, I recently installed Linux on a friends laptop (IBM ThinkPad 390X) and it was all smooth sailing until I got around to installing ALSA. Everything is installed and appears to work correctly, but the sound I get when I try to play an mp3, wav or ogg the audio is completely garbled. (ie. distorted beyond all recognition, fuzzy/staticy, mangled, etc.) I can play an audio CD using XMMS and it sounds perfect. Sound in Noatun, aplay, XMMS and MPlayer are all equally horrible. Sometimes there is hardly any sound. After the player it stopped sometimes there is an echo of this noise that lingers for a few seconds. In XMMS both the OSS output plugin and the ALSA output plugin produce the same garbage. This holds true for alsa-*-0.98 and alsa-*-1.03 packages.
I had installed KDE, but since my friend wanted a responsive system I
removed KDE and put XFCE4 on it instead. I disabled arts in KDE before
removing it, along with the rest of KDE. There _shouldn't_ be anything
leftover from arts that could be a problem.
I have spent days on google trying to figure this one out, but I can't
seem to find any solution for anyone with a similar problem on any lists.
I have had the exact same results using Madrake 9.2, 10.0 (the latter
using a 2.6.3 kernel, unsure about 9.2) as well as Gentoo w/
LK 2.4.25. I am quite positive that this is an ALSA issue and totally
unrelated to the kernel or distribution I am using.
I noticed one or two others on this list had the same problem but no one
even responded. Is the driver for this card even being maintained still?
I would hate to tell my friend to just go back to using Windows because
he is not a Windows fan. If this card simply won't work I don't know
what else to tell him though.
The non-root user on this machine is part of the audio group. (I think
alsa-lib creates devices owned by the user anyways) I have not touched
/etc/devfsd.conf.
Is it possible that OSS might work where ALSA doesn't? That is the only
idea I have left is to give OSS a shot, but I don't really want to
install old technology.
I am completely stumped, hoping someone on this list can give me some
clues. Here's some info...
IBM ThinkPad 390X / Pentium3 450 Mhz / 192 MB RAM
Relevant info from /proc/pci:
Bus 0, device 7, function 0:
Multimedia audio controller: ESS Technology ES1969 Solo-1 Audiodrive
(rev 2).
IRQ 5.
Master Capable. Latency=64. Min Gnt=2.Max Lat=24.
I/O at 0x1080 [0x10bf].
I/O at 0x10e0 [0x10ef].
I/O at 0x10d0 [0x10df].
I/O at 0x10fc [0x10ff].
I/O at 0x10f8 [0x10fb].
# lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
xirc2ps_cs 13456 1
ds 7220 2 [xirc2ps_cs]
yenta_socket 10976 2
pcmcia_core 47488 0 [xirc2ps_cs ds yenta_socket]
snd-pcm-oss 39780 0 (unused)
snd-mixer-oss 13944 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-seq-midi 4064 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-opl3-synth 10664 0 (autoclean) (unused)
snd-seq-instr 6096 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-seq-midi-emul 5264 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-ainstr-fm 1956 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth]
snd-es1938 12868 0 (autoclean)
snd-mpu401-uart 3904 0 (autoclean) [snd-es1938]
snd-rawmidi 14848 0 (autoclean) [snd-seq-midi
snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-pcm 65764 0 (autoclean) [snd-pcm-oss snd-es1938]
snd-page-alloc 7028 0 (autoclean) [snd-es1938 snd-pcm]
snd-opl3-lib 6884 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-synth
snd-es1938]
snd-hwdep 5344 0 (autoclean) [snd-opl3-lib]
snd-seq-oss 30368 0 (unused)
snd-seq-midi-event 3808 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-seq-oss]
snd-seq 39568 2 [snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth
snd-seq-instr snd-seq-midi-emul snd-seq-oss snd-seq-midi-event]
snd-timer 15972 0 [snd-pcm snd-opl3-lib snd-seq]
snd-seq-device 4416 0 [snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth
snd-rawmidi snd-opl3-lib snd-seq-oss snd-seq]
snd 35396 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss
snd-seq-midi snd-opl3-synth snd-seq-instr snd-es1938 snd-mpu401-uart
snd-rawmidi snd-pcm snd-opl3-lib snd-hwdep snd-seq-oss
snd-seq-midi-event snd-seq snd-timer snd-seq-device]
soundcore 4196 8 [snd]
printer 8480 0 (unused)
supermount 79136 2
ieee1394 48932 0
uhci 27452 0 (unused)
usbcore 66060 1 [printer uhci]
# ls -l /dev/sound
total 0
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 4 Dec 31 1969 audio
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 10 Dec 31 1969 dmfm
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 9 Dec 31 1969 dmmidi
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 3 Dec 31 1969 dsp
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 2 Dec 31 1969 midi00
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 0 Dec 31 1969 mixer
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 1 Dec 31 1969 sequencer
crw-rw---- 1 root audio 14, 8 Dec 31 1969 sequencer2
(I am unsure about that second sequencer since I was under the
impression only one is required, even for multiple cards.)
# ls -l /dev | grep sound
(output is messy, correct symlinks are definitely set up though)
# /etc/init.d/alsasound restart
* WARNING: you are stopping a boot service.
* Unloading ALSA...
* Storing ALSA Mixer Levels
* Unloading modules [ ok ]
* Loading ALSA drivers...
* Using ALSA OSS emulation
* Loading: snd-seq-oss
* Loading: snd-pcm-oss
* Running card-dependent scripts
* Restoring Mixer Levels [ ok ]
If any other info is useful I will be more than glad to provide it.
Regards & thanks in advance,
--
Sami Samhuri
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