No sound in Zinf or Rhythmbox

[frimann]

I installed Gentoo 3 weeks ago with 2.6.3 kernel with genkernel.
In KDE sound works fine in xmms, xine and outhers. I installed Zinf and sound errors out with "Cannot open audio device please make sure that the audio device is properly configured."
and in Rhythmbox "osscommon cannot access /dev/dsp does it exist"

I cant find any alsa modules so it must be set in the kernel.
How can i fix the sound for thease programs.

[hard candy]

There is a alsa-zinf plugin available, here is the link to some rpm builds for alt linux but I'm not sure they will work with Gentoo, there may be other builds available for Gentoo. I think there must be a source somewhere.
zinf-alsa.rpm (http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat/4/idpl/1086373/com/zinf-alsa-2.2.4-alt1.i586.rpm.html)
And it seems you may have to configure Rhythmbox to look for alsa or use the alsa-oss plugin.

[frimann]

Thanks for the reply Hard candy. I think i know now what the problem is, the programs are looking for oss and nead alsa plugin/support. Am i right?

[hard candy]

Yes, but I don't use either one enough to know how to do it. And they may be built to look for alsa modules but with the new kernel alsa doesn't have any modules.

[KyPeN]

Read the Gentoo sound installation guide from the docs page @ Gentoo.org.

It walks you through OSS installation I believe.

In other words, RTFM! :D :D :D JK

[hard candy]

It tells you how to install ALSA, but with the 2.6 kernel alsa is integrated into the kernel.

[frimann]

Thats what i ment to say, i have read it 2 times and it did not help with my problem and i did search a bit for a few nights in a row.
And i got rather confused after all that search, but i still think im not lasy!!

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by frimann
"Cannot open audio device please make sure that the audio device is properly configured."
and in Rhythmbox "osscommon cannot access /dev/dsp does it exist"


We have loads of threads here on the 'cannot access /dev/dsp' problem which usually indicates '/dev/dsp' does not have sufficient permissions.

First check to see if /dev/dsp exists.

ls -al /dev/dsp

If it does, try adding the user to the audio group or if that doesn't work, change the permissions (as root)

chmod 666 /dev/dsp

[gearjunkie]

I recompiled my kernel using alsa instead of oss a while ago, and had a similar issue. See if this helps:

I know that rhythmbox typically uses the gstreamer library as a backend, and so you need to make sure that you have the gstreamer-alsa support installed. Go to this page (http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/data/doc/gstreamer/head/faq/html/chapter-using.html) (from the Gstremer website) and follow the directions to test and see if gstreamer is working correctly (producing the sine-tone is the easiest way to do this). I'm not sure what the default install of gstreamer uses as an output plugin, but there should be a way to change it (I know I just uninstalled the osssink plugin, and installed the alsasink plugin and it worked fine).

Not sure if this will help, but it might help you hunting down some answers.
-Nathan

[frimann]

dev/dsp does not exist, i have been searching for how to create it but only found threads where it alredy exists.

[hard candy]

From the Gentoo ALSA config section:
Last thing to do in this file, almost at the end, check if these lines are there and uncommented:

Code Listing 2.9: Near the end of /etc/modules.d/alsa

alias /dev/mixer snd-mixer-oss
alias /dev/dsp snd-pcm-oss
alias /dev/midi snd-seq-oss

After double-checking the file /etc/modules.d/alsa to make sure everyting is ok, run modules-update.

Code Listing 2.10: Running modules-update

# modules-update

Note: Running modules-update here will insert the data from /etc/modules.d/alsa into /etc/modules.conf

You should also verify that /etc/devfsd.conf has the alsa devices and permissions correctly registered.

Code Listing 2.11: /etc/devfsd.conf

# ALSA/OSS stuff
# Comment/change these if you want to change the permissions on
# the audio devices
LOOKUP snd MODLOAD ACTION snd
LOOKUP dsp MODLOAD
LOOKUP mixer MODLOAD
LOOKUP midi MODLOAD
REGISTER sound/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660
REGISTER snd/.* PERMISSIONS root.audio 660

Note: Notice that devfsd.conf sets /dev/sound permissions to be root.audio. Thus, for non-root users to use audio they will have to be part of the audio group.