Re: Audio issue

[Steven Isaacson <spisaacs@xxxxxxx>]

* Adam Shirey (aeshirey@xxxxxxx) wrote:
> I've just reinstalled Slackware (after several failed attempts with
> Debian) and everything works great except for the audio. I did the same
> install as before, and I'm getting the same error message as before, I
> just can't for the life of me remember how I resloved the issue. When I
> go to play something in XMMS or opening the Audio Mixer, I get the
> message:
> 
> I was not able to open your audio device. 
> Please check that you have permission to open /dev/mixer and make sure
> you have sound support compiled into your kernel.
> 
> Default permissions on /dev/(mixer|dsp|audio) are all 660; I've fixed
> problems similar to this by just making it 661 or 664 (not sure which
> actually worked). But I changed them all to 777 and I still can't get it
> to play. I even went as far as to chown them, all without any luck.
> 
> Finally, I can't cat a file into /dev/(dsp|mixer|audio) as I usually
> could, and logging in as root doesn't help.
> 
> Anyone have any ideas as to why I can't get any audio playback?

On Debian you need to make sure you are a member of the group audio. My
/dev/(mixer|dsp|audio) are all 660 with audio as the group. Since even
root can't play sounds I would think its a module problem make sure alsa
is running or your sound modules are installed. Check lsmod or make sure
they aren't built into the kernel. I had problems with trying to use
alsa while the sound module was built into the kernel, I had to
recompile the kernel with both as modules.

-steve
--
Steven Isaacson <spisaacs@xxxxxxx> AIM/MSN/Yahoo:spi516
"Beauty only ever runs skin deep..." - Neuropa