Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 22:37:01 -0600 From: Bob Giesen <BobGiesen@earthlink.net> To: cykyc@yahoo.com Cc: FreeBSD questions <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>, Gnome List <gnome-list@gnome.org> Subject: Re: fxtv (STB) and audio issues -- Live!, PCI512. emu10k1 Message-ID: <E16d21U-0005U1-00@hawk.mail.pas.earthlink.net> In-Reply-To: <20020219010555.32895.qmail@web20609.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20020219010555.32895.qmail@web20609.mail.yahoo.com>
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Weird... but my card is now working (sans the rear speakers, natch). If you're really interested in the steps I took in getting it working, read on. After writing most of this message, I came back to the top to let you know that I'm going to post this for posterity -- so I probably get into more detail than you're interested in suffering. In one of the messages I found in the archives that I mentioned to you, one person spoke of seeing a "/dev/dsp busy" error , or somenthing to that effect. Another person recommended using syscntl to set hw.snd.pcm0.vchans=4 so as to eliminate the conflict. Well, I opened a console when trying to make some noise and found the same error. sysctl showed my hw.snd.pcm0.vchans = 0, so I tried out the advice. The value went from 0 to 4 -- but didn't seem to change anything. In desparation, I rebooted the box and checked hw.snd.pcm0.vchans, which was back to 0. Figuring I hadn't made any headway and now grasping at straws, I chose a different wm (rather than Sawfish/Gnome) from the wdm login screen -- and it worked! The sound (cdcontrol and xmms) worked! I tried every other wm -- including Sawfish w/ Gnome -- and I now have sound. Go figure... I am guessing that using sysctl to set the umber of dsp's to 4 that one time (A) did something to trigger something in the card... or (B) maybe had some cascading effect on some default setting in a FreeBSD config file... or (C) Gnome and/or Sawfish was hosing the sound. I purposely tried several wm's before trying Gnome & Sawfish (G/S). Then, when I started the G/S session, I had no sound effects (Gnome's "Sound Events"), even though those had been turned on in the Gnome Control Center. (Btw, I have always had the Sawfish sound events turned off.) But I started xmms (by typing "xmms" in an xterm) -- and it worked. Likewise with cdcontrol. So, I tempted fate and fired up the Gnome Control Center and checked my Sound Events; they were still turned on and I tried clicking on the [Play] button for some of the events -- and they actualy played. (Just in response to my clicking the button in the control center -- not in response to the actual events, such as logging in/out, clicking on checkboxes, etc...) So, on a hunch, I logged out (just to the wdm login screen -- I left the system running, this time) and logged back in again, directly to G/S. As I did, the login wave played and everything seems to be working as it's supposed to (except, of course, for the rear speakers). Tempting fate yet again, I logged out of my own account (in which all of the above activity took place -- not root's) and logged into G/S, again, using another user account which had the sound events turned off. I turned them on and tried to test them -- to no avail. (But xmms did work.) Unfazed, I simply logged out, then back into G/S under that login -- and the sound events worked. So, for what it's worth, I should note that Gnome seems to start up Esound at login and keeps it running. When I started all those other wm's, I checked for the presence of the Esound daemon (esd), and none of them started it (which makes sense, given that I don't have any sound events set to run via any of the wm's). Per soemone's suggestion, I set up xmms to use esd, when ut didn't work w/ oss. Xmms will start esd, but then esd will go away when xmms is done with it. I'm not sure what the connection is, but I found it curious that, after running that sysctl command to set the # of dsp's to 4 and rebooting, that: 1) xmms and cdcontrol began working immediately for (presumably) any login (all associated dev's had open perm's, btw -- before and after "fix") 2-a) Gnome sound events did not work upon first logging in for any login 2-b) Gnome sound events could be sampled via the [Play} button in its control center for the first user to log in -- but not the second and 3) Gnome sound events began working properly (reacting to events as well as responding to the [Play} button in the control center) with each user's second login after the "fix." (I quote "fix" because I am not convinced that running that sysctl command had any more of an effect on my system than some unusual astronomical alignment might have had by way of tugging at some wayward electrons in my sound card... given that I know about as much about the capability of either cause to have had the desired effect.) Well, unfortunately, this isn't very scientific in its isolation of the problem and/or solution (namely in that neither is really isolated), but I'm posting this to FreeBSD-questions and the Gnome-list just in case someone else comes to grasping at straws and might find this worth trying. Also, perhaps someone who works on the associated pieces (be it Gnome, esd, the pcm driver, Sawfish0 might find something in this worthy of investigation. But then... maybe not. Now, if only I can get my ATI All-In-Wonder card going... :-) Bob P.S. If anyone from the freebsd-questions list wishes to reply to me, please do so to my e-mail addy. I've unsubscribed from that list, for now. My time's been getting a bit pinched, lately. Thanks. On Monday 18 February 2002 07:05 pm, you wrote: > Thanks for the follow-up! > > The only other thing that was mentioned to me was to look at the > mixer(8) settings. I was recommened to look into one of the > settings, I believe "rec" While that setting didn't help out, you > may want to see what the output of mixer mentions. > > I haven't seen anything else w.r.t. to your problem, but if I do, > I'll let you know! > > Jon > > --- Bob Giesen <BobGiesen@earthlink.net> wrote: > > On Saturday 16 February 2002 08:48 am, you wrote: > > > The last thing I noticed is that the I haven't had > > > the pcm driver able to suppor the black "rear out jack", but > > > > only > > > > > the green "line out jack". > > > > Jon, > > You might want to check out the following FBSD > > multimedia-archive > > URL. In it, the current pcm-device author, Cameron Grant, > > mentions > > that the rear speakers were not supported in v4.2. Perhaps > > they're > > still not. > > You might want to poke around this archive (or even get on the > > > > list, if you're not, yet). I noticed some fxtv-related subjects > > in > > the list. > > Bob > > > > -- > > "A camel is a horse designed by a committee." -- Unknown > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games > http://sports.yahoo.com -- Did you know... that the phrase, "in the limelight," originated in the 1800's, when "limelights" were used for stage illumination? Lime (calcium oxide) was heated to incandescence by an oxyhydrogen flame, producing a bright light. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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