Has this happened to anyone else?

[psych-major]

I installed Slack 10 on a freebie PC I salvaged from the trash at my office. It's an MSI barebones sold under the brand-name PremioPC. Sound and video are onboard, Intel i810. The problem is this, when I did the install sound worked perfectly with alsa, but after I ran swaret, I now have no sound, and get an error message at login indicating the following:

"Informational - artsmessage"

Device: Default can't be opened for playback (No such device)

Any ideas?

[Arjay]

I'm not sure but i think if you want to run the current alsa then you need to have the current kernel installed. Slack 10 comes with 2.4.x and the current alsa needs 2.6.x.

Cheers

[psych-major]

As ALSA was working fine with 2.4.26. However, I searched on the actual error message and found a boatload of info, so hopefully I'll come up with an answer there...

[Arjay]

Yes but what i meant was the alsa that comes with Slack works with the 2.4.26 kernel but if you try a newer alsa, for example the current one, it won't work unless you have a 2.6 kernel installed

Then again perhaps i could be wrong, i thought that i had read that somewhere.

Cheers

[psych-major]

The theory is that swaret upgraded alsa to a newer version that is not functional unless I also upgrade the kernel.

[MMYoung]

For some reason, and I don't know why, but swaret borks alsa when you use it to upgrade. It always has for me anyway so I add an EXCLUDE=alsa to the exclude section of my /etc/swaret.conf.

First you need to check and see if you still have the file /etc/rc.d/rc.alsa. If you do not have the rc.alsa then you will need to reinstall the alsa-utils package from your Slackware CD's/DVD. It is located in the /slackware/ap directory. If you want to just re-install all of them the other alsa files are located in the /slackware/l (as in ell) directory.

You can then download the most recent driver, lib, utils, oss files from ALSA (http://www.alsa-project.org) and compile them from source. If you need some hints on how to compile for Slackware and how to make a slackpackage just let me know and I can help you out. After you make your new packages you can just upgrade them using the upgradepkg command.

Main thing is you need that rc.alsa file in /etc/rc.d so if it ain't there need to re-install alsa-utils package regardless.

HTH,
MMYoung

[MMYoung]

Originally posted by psych-major
The theory is that swaret upgraded alsa to a newer version that is not functional unless I also upgrade the kernel.
Your conclusion is sound, but it is derived from inaccurate information. :D :D

The alsa files that are in the slackware-10.0 or in the slackware-current tree are built on the 2.4.xx kernel. If you used swaret to upgrade to any new versions in 10 or current they should still work, no matter the kernel.

See my previous post about alsa.

Later,
MMYoung

[hard candy]

Is the message from KDE's aRts sound server deamon? Have you tried "alsaconf" as "su"? And if it is KDE, in the Control Center, Multimedia, what does the Sound System config pages show?

[Arjay]

Your conclusion is sound, but it is derived from inaccurate information.

So don't believe all that you read, especially from me, and i'll do the same :)

[psych-major]

Thanks all,

MMYoung, I ended up doing what you suggested, before you posted...found it on another post.

Since this seems to be such a hot issue, I put what I did in the 'How I Did It' forum for all to see.
http://justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=137197

Also stripped it out of swaret, not going to get burned twice!

[MMYoung]

Originally posted by Arjay
So don't believe all that you read, especially from me, and i'll do the same :)
I did not mean to sound so harsh, I was in class at the time and was having to hurry through the post and couldn't think of a "better" way of putting it. No disrespect intended, matter of fact I don't know if the 1.0.8 ALSA stuff that is out now requires a 2.6.x kernel or not. I was referring to the ALSA packages available on the Slackware mirrors.

Sorry,
MMYoung

[Arjay]

I did not mean to sound so harsh, I was in class at the time and was having to hurry through the post and couldn't think of a "better" way of putting it. No disrespect intended, matter of fact I don't know if the 1.0.8 ALSA stuff that is out now requires a 2.6.x kernel or not. I was referring to the ALSA packages available on the Slackware mirrors.

Sorry,
MMYoung



Hey no problem, don't worry :) . My information probably wasn't sound and i should have looked into it more. That is definitely something i need to think about before posting in the future and leading people down the wrong path.

Cheers :)