Upon upgrade to ydl4.0 sound no longer works :-(

[nyne]

getting sound working in yellowdog 4.0 is actually fairly trivial.

it requires running yum update, updating your yaboot.conf to reflect the newly built kernel (to check version just cd /usr/src && ls -lrtd, run mkofboot.

finally open your /etc/modprobe.conf and everytime you see the string "dmasound_pmac" replace it with "snd_powermac" <--- this takes 2 seconds

My sound is working fine now. I disable artsd out of habit because it is a resource hog. ( i am running gentoo on an athlon xp notebook as well, so sound being this easy to enable is nothing. On my athlon notebook i have to use a wrapper to even get my wireless card to work which utilizes a microsoft windows driver, and i have no direct rendering support.. My iBook runs flawlessly and only took 45 minutes to do so including getting xmms, sound, firefox, BitchX, etc working properly.

Overall my first impression with Yellowdog is quite positive. I will be checking out these forums more often and hope to learn and help out alike.

to summarize, my setup:

sound tested and working
500mhz g3 iBook Dual USB 12"
512MB PC133 40GB HDD
Yellowdog 4.0

missing:
arts (kde sound server.. you do not need this 99% of the time)

[anorexorcist]

getting sound working in yellowdog 4.0 is actually fairly trivial.

it requires running yum update, updating your yaboot.conf to reflect the newly built kernel (to check version just cd /usr/src && ls -lrtd, run mkofboot.

finally open your /etc/modprobe.conf and everytime you see the string "dmasound_pmac" replace it with "snd_powermac" <--- this takes 2 seconds

My sound is working fine now. I disable artsd out of habit because it is a resource hog. ( i am running gentoo on an athlon xp notebook as well, so sound being this easy to enable is nothing. On my athlon notebook i have to use a wrapper to even get my wireless card to work which utilizes a microsoft windows driver, and i have no direct rendering support.. My iBook runs flawlessly and only took 45 minutes to do so including getting xmms, sound, firefox, BitchX, etc working properly.

Overall my first impression with Yellowdog is quite positive. I will be checking out these forums more often and hope to learn and help out alike.

to summarize, my setup:

sound tested and working
500mhz g3 iBook Dual USB 12"
512MB PC133 40GB HDD
Yellowdog 4.0

missing:
arts (kde sound server.. you do not need this 99% of the time)

I would have to believe G5 owner's like myself are not having the same success as g3 and g4 owners with sound. Everyone I heard from who has had sound with ydl4 is running a g4 or below...

[nyne]

well, just for kicks, post the output of lsmod
perhaps it is a similar problem.

I would not be very surprised if it is. If they are releasing an OS with sound mishaps on older Mac's, it could well be the same case. Basically YD4.0 installs the wrong kernel module for the sound card, and artsd is a piece of garbage on any platform. simple test, jump on any machine that runs kde with working sound.. run top or ps aux and see what a resource hog it can be.

[anorexorcist]

well, just for kicks, post the output of lsmod
perhaps it is a similar problem.

I would not be very surprised if it is. If they are releasing an OS with sound mishaps on older Mac's, it could well be the same case. Basically YD4.0 installs the wrong kernel module for the sound card, and artsd is a piece of garbage on any platform. simple test, jump on any machine that runs kde with working sound.. run top or ps aux and see what a resource hog it can be.

will do when I get home (about 7 hrs from now)....

[nyne]

well, just for kicks, post the output of lsmod
perhaps it is a similar problem.

I would not be very surprised if it is. If they are releasing an OS with sound mishaps on older Mac's, it could well be the same case. Basically YD4.0 installs the wrong kernel module for the sound card, and artsd is a piece of garbage on any platform. simple test, jump on any machine that runs kde with working sound.. run top or ps aux and see what a resource hog it can be.

will do when I get home (about 7 hrs from now)....

for reference sake.. here is my lsmod output (the sound related portion anyway)
again, this is on a G3 iBook 500MhZ dual usb running YDL4.0

Module Size Used by
snd_powermac 38064 0
snd_pcm 101688 1 snd_powermac
snd_page_alloc 9832 1 snd_pcm
snd_timer 23204 1 snd_pcm
snd 48168 3 snd_powermac,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore 8004 1 snd

[anorexorcist]

Well, I didn't get a chance to "compute" last night.
I just got home and typed in "lsmod" and I get the response "command not found".
Of course, without quotes, both as root and regular user, same result.
What gives?

I tried modprobe and also got command not found......

[StarKnight83]

anorexorcist: when your in any terminal other then the virtual terms (f1-f6) and loggin in as root or another user you have to type the explicit path (/sbin/lsmod /sbin/modprobe) i think there is a way to su to use the root users paths but im not sure how to do that

[nyne]

anorexorcist: when your in any terminal other then the virtual terms (f1-f6) and loggin in as root or another user you have to type the explicit path (/sbin/lsmod /sbin/modprobe) i think there is a way to su to use the root users paths but im not sure how to do that

add a - to the command to source the "root" users enviornment variables, etc.

su - (type in the root password)
lsmod

and post the output here

su - would be alright, or sudo -s would essentially accomplish the same thing (you would have to have sudo set up properly in order to do this which is a bit less trivial)

[slackthumbz]

I had this same problem when I installed YDL 4.0 on my G3 Pismo laptop, I admit I'm a complete newbie to Yellow Dog but I started with Linux in the late 90's and used to run slackware on x86 machines, but I've managed to find a few workarounds.

firstly DISABLE THE KDE SOUND SYSTEM!! I think the major problem is in fact a KDE issue and not necessarily a driver problem, I've left my sound card settings (in /etc/modprobe.conf) as they were set during the install and disabled KDE sound, I find I have to raise the volume when I reboot with the keyboard but Xine and Mplayer play sound fine! I've even got DVD's playing with virtually no problems (processor is only 400mHz) and the sound quality is perfect, however I aslo noticed that a lot of the time Xine messes up the colours on the screen background in KDE. As a result I've installed xfce in order to play dvd's because it's more lightweight and takes some pressure off the system. But I still find that the only software that still has major problems within KDE is that which depends on an aRTs server being run. After doing this I noticed that Xine still has a tendency to crash in KDE but if you run it from a terminal with a command like

xine -f -I --no-logo dvd://

it tends to work, this can be applied to vcd's as well and if the KDE sound system is disabled then you should get the sound without any problems... I've set up a couple of single command shell scripts which I've made menu items in order to shortcut this whole process... if you're going to make it a menu item called by a one line shell script then make the first line of the script blank and the second line the command otherwise the terminal will hang on the first line and nothing will happen.

... I hope some of this helps others and that Terrasoft sort the issue out soon so we won't have to resort to all these crazy workarounds... it's a good thing linux users are technical people ....


PS: reference to the previous message: su -c '<command>' is the fastest way I know to do this.

[anorexorcist]

anorexorcist: when your in any terminal other then the virtual terms (f1-f6) and loggin in as root or another user you have to type the explicit path (/sbin/lsmod /sbin/modprobe) i think there is a way to su to use the root users paths but im not sure how to do that

add a - to the command to source the "root" users enviornment variables, etc.

su - (type in the root password)
lsmod

and post the output here

su - would be alright, or sudo -s would essentially accomplish the same thing (you would have to have sudo set up properly in order to do this which is a bit less trivial)

Here we go for the lsmod output:
[brian@c-24-18-92-13 brian]$ /sbin/lsmod
Module Size Used by
dmasound_core 19792 0
snd 48392 0
soundcore 8260 2 dmasound_core,snd
autofs4 18820 0
ds 18436 0
yenta_socket 19712 0
pcmcia_core 62612 2 ds,yenta_socket
sungem 30980 0
sungem_phy 9344 1 sungem
sbp2 22928 1
ohci1394 35716 0
ieee1394 422280 2 sbp2,ohci1394
usb_storage 112092 1
ipv6 267500 13
usblp 12416 0

Here's my /etc/modprobe.conf file:

alias eth0 sungem
alias scsi_hostadapter sbp2
alias snd-card-0 dmasound_pmac
install dmasound_pmac /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install dmasound_pmac && /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/$remove dmasound_pmac { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore$alias <-----this is part of the line above it!
ieee1394-controller ohci1394

I put back the dmasound_pmac since changing it to snd_powermac made no difference for my situation. If I've not mentioned it. I have the stock soundcard for the PowerMac G5 Dual 1.8ghz. It has the standard analog in/out as well as optical in/out. I'm using the analog, though I'd really like to use the optical.... I just need to go out and buy two optical cables is all......

Any other files I should look at?

Also, I use the Gnome Desktop environment. Should I still open up a KDE session and turn off the sound?
By the way, I really appreciate all the input I've received from the community here! Thanks. I bet I'll be the easiest Windows and Mac to Linux convert since I have such minor stuff to do on a computah... Although OSes are just plain fun, the free one are just more fun.

[Ruiner54]

I have had the same problem since installing YDL 4....I would get sound at first, with a lot of buzzing and then get that error message.

When I installed, I decided to GNOME as well as KDE. My sound on my imac standard g3 500 is working great in GNOME, just not on KDE

[hank_le]

snd_powermac, not snd-powermac

yum isn't that hard to use really. yum update, wait a VERY long time, done. Then editing /boot/etc/yaboot.conf isn't that hard, pretty intuitive - point it at the new kernel; then run /sbin/ybin and reboot.

Really?

on my G3 and G4 systems I see:

ls /lib/modules/2.6.9-1.ydl.8/kernel/sound/ppc

snd-powermac.ko

I see a hyphen, not an underscore in the ALSA sound module. When I replace dmasound_pmac with snd-powermac, everything works fine(?)

[ZeroVerteX]

On a bronze/Lombard 400mhz w/ 192 Meg mem my sound almost works,
but it is 95% loud static. Problem is same when sound detection
is set to Automatic or Threaded OSS, OSS. THe sound worked
great with YDL 3.01.
----end---

I'm having a very similar problem. instead of the sound that I should hear, I hear static. I've tried switching to ESD, OSS, ALSA. Any help would be great.

[anorexorcist]

anorexorcist: when your in any terminal other then the virtual terms (f1-f6) and loggin in as root or another user you have to type the explicit path (/sbin/lsmod /sbin/modprobe) i think there is a way to su to use the root users paths but im not sure how to do that

add a - to the command to source the "root" users enviornment variables, etc.

su - (type in the root password)
lsmod

and post the output here

su - would be alright, or sudo -s would essentially accomplish the same thing (you would have to have sudo set up properly in order to do this which is a bit less trivial)

Here we go for the lsmod output:
[brian@c-24-18-92-13 brian]$ /sbin/lsmod
Module Size Used by
dmasound_core 19792 0
snd 48392 0
soundcore 8260 2 dmasound_core,snd
autofs4 18820 0
ds 18436 0
yenta_socket 19712 0
pcmcia_core 62612 2 ds,yenta_socket
sungem 30980 0
sungem_phy 9344 1 sungem
sbp2 22928 1
ohci1394 35716 0
ieee1394 422280 2 sbp2,ohci1394
usb_storage 112092 1
ipv6 267500 13
usblp 12416 0

Here's my /etc/modprobe.conf file:

alias eth0 sungem
alias scsi_hostadapter sbp2
alias snd-card-0 dmasound_pmac
install dmasound_pmac /sbin/modprobe --ignore-install dmasound_pmac && /usr/sbin/alsactl restore >/$remove dmasound_pmac { /usr/sbin/alsactl store >/dev/null 2>&1 || : ; }; /sbin/modprobe -r --ignore$alias <-----this is part of the line above it!
ieee1394-controller ohci1394

I put back the dmasound_pmac since changing it to snd_powermac made no difference for my situation. If I've not mentioned it. I have the stock soundcard for the PowerMac G5 Dual 1.8ghz. It has the standard analog in/out as well as optical in/out. I'm using the analog, though I'd really like to use the optical.... I just need to go out and buy two optical cables is all......

Any other files I should look at?

Also, I use the Gnome Desktop environment. Should I still open up a KDE session and turn off the sound?
By the way, I really appreciate all the input I've received from the community here! Thanks. I bet I'll be the easiest Windows and Mac to Linux convert since I have such minor stuff to do on a computah... Although OSes are just plain fun, the free one are just more fun.

any thoughts StarKnight? What say you, Nyne?

[silver1499]

I've been having almost the exact same sound issue on my 15" Powerbook G4. The sound worked during installation. I've upgraded the kernel, and I've done everything suggested in this forum. I've changed everything to snd_powermac in modprobe.conf. I've tried it w/ the soundsystem off, on w/ OSS, 8bit. But I looked a little close at my error message, and it isn't the exact same as the one most people seem to be getting.

Mine says:
Sound server informational message:
Error while initializing the sound driver:
device /dev/dsp can't be opened (No such device)
The sound server will continue, using the null output device.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for fixing this error message?

thanks,
sterling