Rick Sewill wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
On 07/06/2010 10:38 AM, Bill Davidsen wrote:
Rick Sewill wrote:
On 07/05/2010 10:23 PM, Rick Sewill wrote:
.
I am wondering if OSS is enabled on your system.
Please look for things related to OSS in /etc/modprobe.conf (if it exists) and /etc/modprobe.d Please make sure the line in /etc/modprobe.d/dist-oss.conf is commented out.
Please do, lsmod | grep snd Please make sure there is nothing like snd-pcm-oss or snd-seq-oss installed.
I think you have this totally backward. There are many applications which use the /dev/dsp* devices, and which will produce no sound unless they are present. In fact, I think the majority of older hardware does not have support for sound other than oss. As I look at my newest TV card it has stuff in /dev/dvb, while the other 4-5 cards which have been happily in use do not.
To test (as root): modprobe -v snd-pcm-oss {test applications for sound here}
A lot of people have functional old hardware they can't replace, for financial or technical reasons. That's why there is oss support, to support the hardware which needs it.
This is something I didn't know. As I said, audio still confuses me.
Our goal should be to help the original poster.
In this regard, this new information raises a number of questions.
I am hoping someone will say there is a wiki or web page that answers these questions (and questions I didn't think of).
The questions, I hope, which might be of use to the original poster are as follows:
for what hardware should one use OSS as opposed to Pulse Audio. I did a quick internet search, but failed to find such a list. I am hoping others can help.
This question is to help the original poster decide if they should switch to OSS and see if it works.
Since the manual load is a one time test, the modules can be removed if they don't help, with rmmod or the handy reboot command, or any other means you like for reboot.
- How does one tell if OSS is being used? I assume, if I do lsmod | grep oss, I will see if the OSS modules are being loaded.
Correct. Telling if it would be used if present is harder, I just load oss and see if things start to work.
- How does one switch from Pulse Audio to OSS? I assume one needs to edit files in /etc/modules.d/*.conf or /etc/modules.conf.
I'm going out on a limb here, on systems where enabling oss helped there was no "switch" because AFAIK the oss modules don't impact the alsa and PA applications. I see notes that there might be an issue, I can just say that on three system I have using OSS for old apps, nothing has ever stopped working, so the term "switch" is probably not an issue in most cases.
Files to be edited might include dist-oss.conf and blacklist.conf and others? Am I right?
Are there other files one needs to edit? Are there any rpms one needs to install? Are there any rpms one needs to remove?
Are there any application configuration changes one needs to make? I assume applications can be configured to use the OSS api, as well as the ALSA api and/or Pulse Audio API.
- How does one switch from OSS back to Pulse Audio? Is the answer to this the inverse of the answer to question 3? I.e., edit files /etc/modules.d/*.conf or /etc/modules.conf Install certain rpms? Remove certain rpms?
See above, to get OSS I uncomment the load in modprobe.d, I never touched anything else, and I have used OSS fairly heavily rather than change software.
- is there a web page that describes the tools one uses when using OSS? Are these the tools: http://www.opensound.com/ossapps.html#mixer
I have seen no indication that you need such things, or maybe it's because I load a bunch of mixers, advanced and stupid, and just try one after the other until I find the one with the right slider (there are usually three useful at most).
Unless you hit problems, regard this as a switch, turn it on and see if you need tools or techniques, or if it even helps. Don't oversolve the problem.