[linux-audio-user] Soundless ALSA Newbie

[Sakari Aaltonen]

On 10 Jan 2003, Jan "Evil Twin" Depner wrote:

> I have been using ALSA with OSS compatibility and can use xine and
> Timidity both.  I'm wondering if you loaded the ALSA stuff properly.  As
> Patrick said earlier, you might want to start the load from scratch.  I
> have some docs on doing everything from tarballs on my page at
> http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/ALSA_JACK_ARDOUR.html.  It's mostly
> for Ardour but it might help.
> 
> Jan

An off-list email from Christian Henz led me to the solution.
It seems that the 'oss' modules are not loaded automatically.

When I insmoded 'snd-via82xx', a lot of other modules were,
in fact, loaded, which enabled the playing of .WAV files, say.
For xine, I had to 'insmod snd-pcm-oss' separately. After that,
sound from DVD's and TV became suddenly available. Great joy!

However...

This only happens in 8bpp (video) mode. If I try 16bpp, mplayer,
for instance, plays both sound and video for 10-15 seconds only.
After that, no more sound, and mplayer says my machine is too
slow.

xine, on the other hand, does play the sound, but it shows no
video - just a blank (grey) rectangle. 

So the subject needs further study. The 8bpp colors are not
too  good.


Sakari Aaltonen